Reasons why an IntentService won't start?

android, android-intent, intentservice, service

Solution

I suspect that you need to take a closer look at LogCat. Common problems here include:

- failed to list the service in the manifest

- failed to create a public zero-argument constructor on the service (the default constructor for `IntentService` takes one argument, and you need to add your own constructor)

- other syntactical problems (e.g., service is declared `abstract`)

However, all of those will result in messages in LogCat. I can think of no scenario under which `startService()` would not invoke your code without a message in LogCat.

Problem

I have an Android IntentService that is behaving strangely. I am sending it an intent via a call to startService(intent). (I apologize, I'm away from my desk and can't paste any actual code.) When I make the above call nothing happens. Neither the constructor nor the onHandleIntent methods are called in the Intent Service. There are no compiler warnings or errors and I see nothing of interest in the Console or Log. As I continue to investigate this, I was just wondering if there is a short list of likely reasons why an IntentService would not start like this with no obvious evidence of why. Is the problem likely in the manifest file?

Original source