Trying to start a service on boot on Android

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The other answers look good, but I thought I’d wrap everything up into one complete answer.

You need the following in your AndroidManifest.xml file:

  1. In your <manifest> element:

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" />

  2. In your <application> element (be sure to use a fully-qualified [or relative] class name for your BroadcastReceiver):

    <receiver android:name="com.example.MyBroadcastReceiver">  
    <intent-filter>  
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED" />  
    </intent-filter>  
</receiver>

    (you don’t need the android:enabled, exported, etc., attributes: the Android defaults are correct)

    In MyBroadcastReceiver.java:

    package com.example;

public class MyBroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        Intent startServiceIntent = new Intent(context, MyService.class);
        context.startService(startServiceIntent);
    }
}

From the original question:

  • it’s not clear if the <receiver> element was in the <application> element
  • it’s not clear if the correct fully-qualified (or relative) class name for the BroadcastReceiver was specified
  • there was a typo in the <intent-filter>

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