Start Activity from Service in Android

Question

From inside the Service class:

Intent dialogIntent = new Intent(this, MyActivity.class);
dialogIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(dialogIntent);

I had the same problem, and want to let you know that none of the above worked for me. What worked for me was:

 Intent dialogIntent = new Intent(this, myActivity.class);
 dialogIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
 this.startActivity(dialogIntent);

and in one my subclasses, stored in a separate file I had to:

public static Service myService;

myService = this;

new SubService(myService);

Intent dialogIntent = new Intent(myService, myActivity.class);
dialogIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
myService.startActivity(dialogIntent);

All the other answers gave me a nullpointerexception.

UPDATE ANDROID 10 AND HIGHER

Start an activity from service (foreground or background) is no longer allowed.

There are still some restrictions that can be seen in the documentation

https://developer.android.com/guide/components/activities/background-starts

Another thing worth mentioning: while the answer above works just fine when our task is in the background, the only way I could make it work if our task (made of service + some activities) was in the foreground (i.e. one of our activities visible to user) was like this:

    Intent intent = new Intent(storedActivity, MyActivity.class);
    intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
    intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
    intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
    storedActivity.startActivity(intent);

I do not know whether ACTION_VIEW or FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK are of any actual use here. The key to succeeding was

storedActivity.startActivity(intent);

and of course FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT for not instantiating the activity again. Best of luck!