Scanning in separate process not working

Using the library (ranging notifier) inside android service, running in a separate process (android:process tag in manifest) yields no results nor throwing any exception or error. Removing the android:process tag from the services makes the same code work.

Note: I’m not trying to run the service in one process and get the result in main process. Everything regarding AltBeacon is solely in the service (and service’s process).

Expected behavior - I can get results for nearby beacons or get an error if the configuration is wrong

Actual behavior - getting no readings at all nor error that something is awry

Steps to reproduce this behavior - create a service running in a separate process and implement beacon ranging (for example similar to Ranging Example Code here https://altbeacon.github.io/android-beacon-library/samples.html)

Mobile device model and OS version Samsung Galagy S8 running Oreo

Android Beacon Library version 2.16.1

[bio007]

Hi, thanks for additional info. Actually I’ve made some progress.

It more or less works with beaconManager.setEnableScheduledScanJobs(false) and with

        <receiver android:name="org.altbeacon.beacon.startup.StartupBroadcastReceiver"
                  android:process="process.name"
                  tools:replace="process" />
        <service
            android:name="org.altbeacon.beacon.service.BeaconService"
            android:process="process.name"
            tools:replace="process" />
        <service
            android:name="org.altbeacon.beacon.BeaconIntentProcessor"
            android:process="process.name"
            tools:replace="process" />

overridden in manifest.

Only funny thing I see is that even when the app and service is in foreground (running in foreground mode) I’m receiving scans every 5 minutes which is what I set for background scans beaconManager.setBackgroundBetweenScanPeriod(300000L). So it looks to me that it is somehow “operating in backround mode” all the time.

[davidgyoung]

When you have a service running in a separate process things get strange. Because there are two processes, that means there are two copies of every singleton object. That means two BeaconManager instances and two Application instances. I had to build the library so that is OK. The library detects if the scanning process is separate, and then knows whether the BeaconManager is the one in the main process or the scanning process. Settings are marshalled between the the BeaconManager instance on the main process and the one on the secondary scanning process.

In the reference implementation, both instances of the Application class implement BootstrapNotifier (they must be the same!) but the background scanning variant never starts up RegionBootstrap so it never gets the callbacks. (Confusing, but it works!)

I probably need a deeper explanation of where you set up RegionBootstrap and BackgroundPowerSaver to be helpful. I have not tested other setups.