Can't find service because OSGi bundle isn't activated
bundle, equinox, osgi, spring, springsource-dm-server
Solution
What you really have is a dependency hierarchy problem, your proposed hacky solution is really just a band-aid over the underlying issue.
What you should really consider is the architecture of your system, as effectively what you have is a circular dependency (re: discussion in comments your original post). You have (like it or not) A requires services from (and in some sense depends on) B and C. Meanwhile, B and C directly depend on A, and as such, cannot start until A comes up.
In the best case, you can write code in B and C to listen for the existence of A, but this at best masks (as I mentioned) the underlying issue. What you should really consider is splitting A into two bundles, let's call them A1 and A2.
A1 should provide the interface which B and C require (depend on). A2 should have listeners for the services B and C depend on. At startup, if B and C are required services, A1 must be run, but A2 may start any time later, and everything should work.
Problem
I'm having a problem discovering services that are provided by some OSGi bundles that are not being activated. Let me describe the situation: - Bundle A defines interface X - Bundles B, C, and D provide services that implement interface X - These bundles' services are registered via Spring DM, so they are only created when the bundle is activated and Spring DM initialized the application context defined in the bundle - Bundle A is activated and at some point asks the service registry for services for interface X. It doesn't find any, because bundles B, C, and D haven't been moved into the ACTIVE state (they are only RESOLVED). I cannot seem to get bundles B, C, or D to start, and therefore register their services. Forcing them to start by adding them to the `config.ini` is not an option, because there can be any number of bundles that are installed in the application (via an Eclipse p2-like update mechanism) that implement interface X. The application is an Eclipse 3.5-based RCP app, using Spring 2.5.6 and Spring DM 1.2.1. How do I force these bundles to be activated?