Companion App Shortcut spawns new recent app

Home Assistant Android version: 2022.3.0-full

Android version: 12

Phone model: Samsung Galaxy S20 5G

Home Assistant version: 2022.2.9

Last working Home Assistant release (if known): N/A

**Description of problem: When launching the app from a shortcut, a new copy of the app is displayed in recent apps. In trying to ensure the phone does not kill the app in the background, I have selected “Keep Open” from the options in recent apps. This now means that every time I launch the app from a shortcut, it creates a new, locked, copy in my recent apps. **

Traceback (if applicable, to get the logs you may refer to: https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/troubleshooting/faqs/#android-crash-logs): N/A

Screenshot of problem:

Additional information:

[CKerswell]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

I use Nova Launcher, tried switching to the default Samsung launcher and experience the same behaviour.

Also tested a fresh install on a Xiaomi Mi5 using Android 8 and exhibits the same behaviour, so it does look to be app related as opposed to device related.

[dshokouhi]

It looks like it would be possible to retain both behaviours by using a combination of android:documentLaunchMode / finishAndRemoveTask() /

finishAndRemoveTask() will not work here because the same activity is used when the app is launched and there are other places that open webview instead of just the shortcuts. Also it needs to be called from an activity but shortcuts launch activities, they are not an activity themselves.

android:maxRecents.

This does not work, I tested it myself and it does not respect this value

None of the options are viable for us here, as this activity is a webview activity we have things to workaround some of the odd quirks when it comes to multiple shortcuts. The only option that may be viable would be to exclude the screen completely from recents but I also suspect that wont be nice.