Firebase messaging does not work when initialized in a separate Android process

I’ve been trying to offload Firebase messaging in our app to a separate Android process and I’ve had no luck so far.

Using Firebase-messaging:18.0.0

The first thing I tried was to make sure the FirebaseListenerService (our subclass of FirebaseMessagingService) runs in a separate process. Because of our application design, we use a CustomFirebaseInitProvider and override the default FirebaseInitProvider. This CustomFirebaseInitProvider also initializes Firebase app in the auxiliary process.

<application>
    <service
        android:name=".push.fcm.FirebaseListenerService"
        android:process="com.xxx.yyy.someprocess"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:exported="false">
      <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="com.google.firebase.MESSAGING_EVENT" />
      </intent-filter>
    </service>

    <!-- Disable default FirebaseInitProvider -->
    <provider android:name="com.google.firebase.provider.FirebaseInitProvider"
        tools:node="remove" />

    <provider android:authorities="${applicationId}.firebaseinitprovider"
        android:name=".push.fcm.provider.CustomFirebaseInitProvider"
        android:process="com.xxx.yyy.someprocess"
        android:exported="false"
        android:initOrder="100">
    </provider>
  </application>

This has the effect of creating the FirebaseListenerService in a separate process upon receiving the MESSAGING_EVENT intent. I am also able to verify that the FirebaseApp instance was instantiated in the auxiliary process.

However, on sending notifications, the onMessageReceived handler in FirebaseListenerService never gets called. Although a MESSAGING_EVENT intent is always sent to create the FirebaseListenerService everytime.

After some investigation I realized the com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE intent (which causes message delivery to FirebaseMessagingService and thus to onMessageReceived) was being received only in the main process, but not in the auxiliary process. This is because the Firebase SDK internally adds the FirebaseInstanceIdReceiver to the app manifest and it comes up in the main process.

<receiver
        android:name="com.google.firebase.iid.FirebaseInstanceIdReceiver"
        android:permission="com.google.android.c2dm.permission.SEND"
        android:enabled="false"
        android:exported="true">
      <intent-filter>
        <action
            android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE" />
      </intent-filter>
    </receiver>

So I also override this to be brought up in the auxliary process. Also realized it might be necessary to bring up the ComponentDiscoveryService in the auxiliary process too:

<receiver
        android:name="com.google.firebase.iid.FirebaseInstanceIdReceiver"
        android:process="com.xxx.yyy.someprocess"
        android:permission="com.google.android.c2dm.permission.SEND"
        android:enabled="false"
        android:exported="true"
        tools:node="merge">
      <intent-filter>
        <action
            android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE" />
      </intent-filter>
    </receiver>

<service
        android:name="com.google.firebase.components.ComponentDiscoveryService"
        android:process="com.xxx.yyy.someprocess"
        android:exported="false"
        android:directBootAware="true"
        tools:node="merge">

      <meta-data
          android:name="com.google.firebase.components:com.google.firebase.dynamicloading.DynamicLoadingRegistrar"
          android:value="com.google.firebase.components.ComponentRegistrar" />

      <meta-data
          android:name="com.google.firebase.components:com.google.firebase.iid.Registrar"
          android:value="com.google.firebase.components.ComponentRegistrar" />
    </service>

After this change, the auxiliary process never comes up and I do not see any com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE intents being received on notification send. I would have expected this to initialize FirebaseInstanceIdReceiver on notification send, but maybe my limited understanding of the Firebase SDK is totally off. Any pointers on how to initialize Firebase on a separate process?

[gsakakihara]

I assumed that:

<receiver android:name="com.google.firebase.iid.FirebaseInstanceIdReceiver" android:process="com.xxx.yyy.someprocess" android:permission="com.google.android.c2dm.permission.SEND" android:enabled="false" android:exported="true" tools:node="merge"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.intent.RECEIVE" /> </intent-filter> </receiver>

was the part that you added to the manifest. Can you check the manifest of the apk you’re testing and see how the FirebaseInstanceIdReceiver is being declared there?

https://firebase.google.com/support/troubleshooter/fcm/delivery/diagnose/android

If you’re able to view the FCM Diagnostics, you should be able to see from the logs whether the broadcast was delivered to the app.

Messages are sent from Google Play services.

[google-oss-bot]

Since there haven’t been any recent updates here, I am going to close this issue.

@abhinavchdhry if you’re still experiencing this problem and want to continue the discussion just leave a comment here and we are happy to re-open this.