Start application without activity, my Broadcast Receiver not work

Question

In my app, I have a Broadcast Receiver for catching the message sent to my phone

<receiver
            android:name="com.qmobile.ows.SMS_Receiver"
            android:enabled="true" 
            android:exported="true">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE" />
                <action android:name="android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" />                  
            </intent-filter>
</receiver>

If I start app with activity GUI, the BroadCast Receiver works normally.

I want to start my application without activity and do not show icon app, so I remove this code below from my activity

 <intent-filter>
                  <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
              <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
 </intent-filter>

And after that, Broadcast Receiver do not work.

Please help me solve this problem.

Answer 1

This is because Android OS does not allow BroadcastReceiver to receive some important broadcast(android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED must be one of it) if the app´s process is not alive.It was designed to against the evil apps. If you have an activity running,your process is alive and so your receiver is allowed to receive the broadcast.

I think you can make a transparent activity and use startService to start a service in background,then finish the activity.As your service is running ,your process is alive,so the Android OS will let you to receive the broadcast.