I have created a React native application, which has a foreground service that needs to be started automatically when the device is rebooted. This foreground service functions 100% when it is started normally when opening the app (as I've configured it to do). For context, the service is created in a native module which I have developed, and that native module is imported in the React native application and that's how the service is invoked.
I now am trying to solve for the issue of invoking the native module and getting the service to start without the user needing to open the app. I'm running into an issue where it seems that my app is constantly being killed while it is restarting on a reboot.
I have noticed that whenever I reboot the device with the application installed (in debug mode), there is activity in the logcat in Android studio.
It seems that the device is trying to start the application, but for some reason it is always getting killed. I noticed this while using the react-native-background-fetch package in my application - where I have created a task to run on boot (I have followed the instructions to do this and I believe my implementation is correct as far as I can tell).
These are the logs I'm seeing in Android studio - with the kill log at the end
---------------------------- PROCESS STARTED (8734) for package com.btech.app ----------------------------
...
...
2023-01-26 14:33:36.067 8734-8734 com.btech.app com.btech.app W Accessing hidden field Landroid/view/View;->mKeyedTags:Landroid/util/SparseArray; (unsupported, reflection, allowed)
2023-01-26 14:33:36.067 8734-8734 com.btech.app com.btech.app W Accessing hidden field Landroid/view/View;->mListenerInfo:Landroid/view/View$ListenerInfo; (unsupported, reflection, allowed)
2023-01-26 14:33:36.068 8734-8734 com.btech.app com.btech.app W Accessing hidden field Landroid/view/View$ListenerInfo;->mOnClickListener:Landroid/view/View$OnClickListener; (unsupported, reflection, allowed)
2023-01-26 14:33:36.085 8734-8734 flipper com.btech.app I flipper: FlipperClient::addPlugin Inspector
2023-01-26 14:33:36.087 8734-8734 flipper com.btech.app I flipper: FlipperClient::addPlugin React
2023-01-26 14:33:36.094 8734-8734 flipper com.btech.app I flipper: FlipperClient::addPlugin Databases
2023-01-26 14:33:36.105 8734-8734 flipper com.btech.app I flipper: FlipperClient::addPlugin Preferences
2023-01-26 14:33:36.106 8734-8734 flipper com.btech.app I flipper: FlipperClient::addPlugin CrashReporter
2023-01-26 14:33:36.114 8734-8734 flipper com.btech.app I flipper: FlipperClient::addPlugin Network
2023-01-26 14:33:36.123 8734-8734 System.out com.btech.app I BOOT RECEIVER INITIALISED - sending to RN
2023-01-26 14:33:36.131 8734-8734 Choreographer com.btech.app I Skipped 62 frames! The application may be doing too much work on its main thread.
2023-01-26 14:33:36.135 8734-8734 RebootReceiver com.btech.app I Received reboot event
2023-01-26 14:33:36.138 8734-8734 NOTIFEE com.btech.app D (NotifeeAlarmManager): Reschedule Notifications on reboot
2023-01-26 14:33:36.167 8734-8809 com.btech.app com.btech.app W Accessing hidden method Landroid/app/AppGlobals;->getInitialApplication()Landroid/app/Application; (unsupported, reflection, allowed)
2023-01-26 14:33:36.176 8734-8734 TSBackgroundFetch com.btech.app D BootReceiver: android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED
2023-01-26 14:33:36.186 8734-8734 TSBackgroundFetch com.btech.app D ☯️ onCreate
2023-01-26 14:33:36.237 8734-8734 TSBackgroundFetch com.btech.app D ☯️ HeadlessMode? true
2023-01-26 14:33:38.983 8734-8752 System com.btech.app W A resource failed to call close.
2023-01-26 14:33:41.991 8734-9389 ProfileInstaller com.btech.app D Installing profile for com.btech.app
2023-01-26 14:33:46.947 1311-3881 ActivityManager pid-1311 I Killing 8734:com.btech.app/u0a263 (adj 999): empty #22
I'm not quite sure what can be done about the warnings (The 'A resource failed to call close' and the 'Accessing hidden method/fields' messages in the logs) but I'm not actually sure if these are something that would be killing the app and would need to be addressed.
What I've noticed is that, even without the background fetch task configured and the package completely removed, it is still showing the same logs and trying to restart the application, just without the TSBackgroundFetch library's logs in the logcat. I've tried various settings on configuring that job but they have all had the same result.
The only thing that I have noticed that is consistent, is that the app is ALWAYS killed after the second last line in the logs, which says 'Installing profile for com.btech.app' and I'm not exactly sure of what this line actually means or if it could be the point at which the restart is failing.
For reference, here's the job as I have it configured currently. When I open the app, I can see that the job is configured and from the logs it is evident that it does actually try to execute the code but doesn't get to in the end. This code is in my app's index.js file.
async function initialiseBackgroundRebootTaskForAndroid() {
logger.info("Starting android reboot task registration...")
if (Platform.OS === 'android') {
const onRunJob = async (taskID) => {
logger.info("Running reboot task.")
initialiseApp()
BackgroundFetch.finish(taskID);
}
await BackgroundFetch.configure({
minimumFetchInterval: 15,
stopOnTerminate: false,
startOnBoot: true,
enableHeadless: false,
}, onRunJob, (error) => {
logger.info("RNBackgroundFetch failed to start");
}).then(() => {
logger.info('[RNBackgroundReinitAppJob] Background restart job scheduled.')
})
} else {
logger.info("Task not started - device is iOS...")
}
}
Additionally, I have also tried to create my own native BOOT_COMPLETED receiver on the Android side, and in the onReceive listener, broadcast an event to a LocalBroadcastManager listener on the React Native side, but I think that receiver gets killed when the device switches off so that actually isn't registered any longer when the app receives the BOOT_COMPLETED intent. In the logs you can see that the intent was received but I don't know how to see if the message is received in the JS side because my device is no longer connected to metro after a reboot.
I need to fix this so that the app is not killed automatically all the time. Does anyone know what could be causing this?
Thanks!
