UAMP crashes with ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException when targeting API 31/32

The UAMP app crashes when trying to resume the playback session using the Google Assistant if the target and compile sdk is 31 or above

Steps to reproduce it:

• Checkout the latest version of uamp and update the target and compile sdk to API 31 or 32
• Fix the compilation issues (adding flags to the manifest and some other classes)
• Open UAMP app
• Start playing something
• Pause it
• Background the app
• Open the Google Assistant and say: resume
• The app crashes:

    android.app.ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException: startForegroundService() not allowed due to mAllowStartForeground false: service com.example.android.uamp.next/com.example.android.uamp.media.MusicService
        at android.app.ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException$1.createFromParcel(ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException.java:54)
        at android.app.ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException$1.createFromParcel(ForegroundServiceStartNotAllowedException.java:50)
        at android.os.Parcel.readParcelable(Parcel.java:3333)
        at android.os.Parcel.createExceptionOrNull(Parcel.java:2420)
        at android.os.Parcel.createException(Parcel.java:2409)
        at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:2392)
        at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:2334)
        at android.app.IActivityManager$Stub$Proxy.startService(IActivityManager.java:6028)
        at android.app.ContextImpl.startServiceCommon(ContextImpl.java:1855)
        at android.app.ContextImpl.startForegroundService(ContextImpl.java:1831)
        at android.content.ContextWrapper.startForegroundService(ContextWrapper.java:779)
        at androidx.core.content.ContextCompat$Api26Impl.startForegroundService(ContextCompat.java:933)
        at androidx.core.content.ContextCompat.startForegroundService(ContextCompat.java:701)
        at com.example.android.uamp.media.MusicService$PlayerNotificationListener.onNotificationPosted(MusicService.kt:577)
        at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ui.PlayerNotificationManager.startOrUpdateNotification(PlayerNotificationManager.java:1164)
        at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ui.PlayerNotificationManager.handleMessage(PlayerNotificationManager.java:1409)
        at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ui.PlayerNotificationManager.lambda$ZG0s-7uOzb-YtyUlp8ahx3j4wBg(Unknown Source:0)
        at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ui.-$$Lambda$PlayerNotificationManager$ZG0s-7uOzb-YtyUlp8ahx3j4wBg.handleMessage(Unknown Source:2)

Does the UAMP project still needs to be updated to comply with the latest restrictions around Foreground Services introduced in API 31 ? If this is the case, do you have any idea on when this would happen?

Is it possible that the problem is within the Google Assistant app?

[keithburgoyne]

Also having this issue on one of our apps. I came here to see how Google solves the problem, only to find … they haven’t.

[DiegoPinedoEscribano]

It’s a shame that this wasn’t addressed one year ago when Android 12 was introduced. Is Google really unaware of this or are they just ignoring the consequences their bad API decisions have on apps? I really want to know how to solve this problem. I mean, they force developers to target the newest API levels and don’t provide help on how to address such problems.

And btw, I think this doesn’t relate to the Google Assistant because I have seen such crashes on devices where Google services are not available at all. I don’t know how to reproduce it locally, but it’s a fact that this crash happens on production apps.

We have opened an issue on their Issue Tracker in case you wanna also follow that one: https://issuetracker.google.com/u/1/issues/235172948