Unable to dismiss/hide alarm icon on Android 5.0 Lollipop

Question

Since the release of Android Lollipop 5.0 (API21), there is now an API to officially show/hide the alarm icon. There is more information about this here on stackoverflow.

Thanks to it, I managed to now display the alarm icon on 5.0+ Android devices. Unfortunately, I can't dismiss/hide/cancel the icon if the alarm is disabled.

Here is what I'm doing (a mix of several attempts from Stackoverflow and Android stock alarm) :

public static void setNextAlert(final Context context) {

final Alarm alarm = calculateNextAlert(context);

AlarmManager am = (AlarmManager) context.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
Intent intent = new Intent(ALARM_ALERT_ACTION);

PendingIntent sender = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, intent, PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);

int flags = alarm == null ? PendingIntent.FLAG_NO_CREATE : 0;
PendingIntent operation = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0 /* requestCode */,  intent, flags);


if (alarm != null) 
{
    if(UtilsAlarm.isLollipopOrLater())
    {
        PendingIntent viewIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, alarm.id, intent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);
        AlarmManager.AlarmClockInfo info = new AlarmManager.AlarmClockInfo(alarm.time, viewIntent);
        am.setAlarmClock(info, operation);
    }
    else
    {
        if(UtilsAlarm.isKitKatOrLater())
        {
            am.setExact(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, alarm.time, sender);
        }
        else
        {   
            am.set(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, alarm.time, sender);
        }
        
        setStatusBarIcon(context, true);
    }
    
    Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
    c.setTimeInMillis(alarm.time);
    String timeString = formatDayAndTime(context, c);
    saveNextAlarm(context, timeString);
} 
else 
{
    if(UtilsAlarm.isLollipopOrLater())
    {
        am.cancel(operation);
    }
    else
    {
        am.cancel(sender);
        setStatusBarIcon(context, false);
    }

    saveNextAlarm(context, "");
}

Intent i = new Intent(NEXT_ALARM_TIME_SET);
context.sendBroadcast(i); }

So if we're on a version lower to Lollipop, it is still working great. However, for Lollipop devices, the icon is displayed when an alarm is enabled but if you disable it (and there are no other alarms enabled), it is currently cancelled from the next coming alarm (expected result) but the icon is still present on the notification bar.

Anyone has an idea of the issue?

Thansk for your help.

Answer 1

Your problem is in the line int flags = alarm == null ? PendingIntent.FLAG_NO_CREATE : 0;

You are telling the system to assign null to PendingIntent operation, because a corresponding intent already existed from the previous time you were in this method (see doc for FLAG_NO_CREATE).

Later when you call am.cancel(operation); that has no effect at all, since operation == null. Your alarm is still registered in the system. The only reason why nothing happens when the alarm goes off is that you cancelled the intent (not the alarm) in the previous line: PendingIntent sender = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, intent, PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);. So your assertion is wrong when you say "it is currently cancelled from the next coming alarm (expected result)". The alarm was not cancelled; it was just its intent that was cancelled.

I recommend you to use FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT.