How to startForeground() without showing notification?

Question

I want to create a service and make it run in the foreground.

Most example codes have notifications on it. But I don't want to show any notification. Is that possible?

Can you give me some examples? Are there any alternatives?

My app service is doing mediaplayer. How to make system not kill my service except the app kill it itself (like pausing or stopping the music by button).

Answer 1

As a security feature of the Android platform, you cannot, under any circumstance, have a foregrounded service without also having a notification. This is because a foregrounded service consumes a heavier amount of resources and is subject to different scheduling constraints (i.e., it doesn't get killed as quickly) than background services, and the user needs to know what's possibly eating their battery. So, don't do this.

However, it is possible to have a "fake" notification, i.e., you can make a transparent notification icon (iirc). This is extremely disingenuous to your users, and you have no reason to do it, other than killing their battery and thus creating malware.

Answer 2

Update: This was "fixed" on Android 7.1. https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=213309

Since the 4.3 update, it's basically impossible to start a service with startForeground() without showing a notification.

You can, however, hide the icon using official APIs... no need for a transparent icon: (Use NotificationCompat to support older versions)

NotificationCompat.Builder builder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(context); builder.setPriority(Notification.PRIORITY_MIN); 

I've made peace with the fact the notification itself still needs to be there but for who ever who still wants to hide it, I may have found a workaround for that as well:

1. Start a fake service with startForeground() with the notification and everything.
2. Start the real service you want to run, also with startForeground() (same notification ID)
3. Stop the first (fake) service (you can call stopSelf() and in onDestroy call stopForeground(true)).

Voilà! No notification at all and your second service keeps running.