What happens to AsyncTasks after onPause?

Question

I have an AsyncTask that is executed before I move on to the next Activity. Inside this AsyncTask, I have a MediaPlayer.

 protected void onPause() {
           stopProgress();
           Log.i(TAG, "onPAUSE");
           try  {
           } finally {
           // If we allocated a player, then cleanup after it
           if (player != null) {
               player.reset();
               player.release();
               player = null;
               Log.d(TAG,"end of player cleanup");
                            }
            }
            super.onPause();
         }

Use Scenario:

1. Click play button in Activity 1
2. Move on to Activity 2 before player even loads (log information from onPause is definitely called).
3. While in Activity 2, player from Activity 1 plays when finished loading.

Answer 1

Nothing should happen to the AsyncTask. It will continue to run. However, this isn't a great way to run a media player in the background (use a service for that). Your code will cancel the media player, but depending on what you have in your AsyncTask, it may still be active. You can ensure that the AsyncTask is killed by calling cancel (boolean mayInterruptIfRunning) on the task.

If for whatever reason your MediaPlayer object is still running using the code above, then call AsyncTask.cancel(true) and override void onCancelled (Result result) and then kill the MediaPlayer from within your thread. Remember, onCancelled will only be called AFTER doInBackground returns (or you can periodically check isCancelled() to see if something has called cancel() on your thread. If you set cancel(true) then I believe it won't bother waiting for doInBackground to finish, but of course that's not as clean.

Answer 2

I don't know exactly what you're doing in you AsyncTask, but what ever it is should keep going even it onPause() is called. If onDestroy() is called and you have your AsyncTask referencing stuff in your Activity, you're going to run into problems though because the AsycnTask will essentially start throwing null pointer exceptions.