#4690 - Background turfing doesn't work on Android 6 devices

Background turfing doesn't work on Android 6 devices

This issue was originally reported as related to Android App.

Status

assigned

Resolution

open

Reported by

mr-iller

Date submitted

2016-08-16 09:35

Issue ID

#4690

Steps to reproduce

1. Start Turf application 2. Enable GPS Turf 3. Switch to another application, e.g. Hangouts 4. Wait a while (one minute or more) 5. Switch back to Turf

Description

Actual: * Turf app takes some time to load * GPS is disabled in Turf * Status message "Turf is running" is active Expected: * Turf app starts quickly * GPS is enabled * Status message "Turf is running" is active I have tried with Nexus 7 2013 running Android 6 and the issue affects also this device. I have tried with Samsung Galaxy Core running Android 5 and the issues doesn't affect this device. I am quite sure I didn't have the issue when running Android 5 on my Sony Xperia Z3 Compact (before upgrading to Android 6) I have disabled "battery optimization" in Android 6 for Turf. I didn't help. That helped for another application though, Locus Map, that also can run in the background. The issue is very annoying as it makes it impossible to switch to another application when taking zone. Often you want to chat in Hangouts or similar when taking a zone but because of this issue you can't do that and still take the zone because the GPS may get disabled when taking the zone. Please make background turfing work on Android 6.

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Responses

Kingslayer 2016-08-16 16:54

Not much our developers can do about this since this is how Android works. The best thing to combat this is to have a phone with lots of RAM and don't use any "optimization" software. I will keep the issue open nevertheless in case our developers can optimize something.

mr-iller 2016-08-17 10:12

Thanks for your feedback. I know Android system kills inactive applications but I think this is a different case. It seems that the Turf application is not completely killed by the system when it is running in the background. The notification icon stays visible and says "Turf is running" but the process is killed. Other apps that use also GPS such as Locus Map manages to stay alive in the background so it should be possible for Turf to stay alive too. An Android app that runs as a service and uses the correct Android API calls for this should be possible to run in the background.

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