How to get info of currently playing music using broadcastreceiver while the app isn't running?

Question

I would like to receive broadcasts from music players while the app is in the background.

I found the following code here:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);

    IntentFilter iF = new IntentFilter();
    iF.addAction("com.android.music.metachanged");
    iF.addAction("com.android.music.playstatechanged");
    iF.addAction("com.android.music.playbackcomplete");
    iF.addAction("com.android.music.queuechanged");

    registerReceiver(mReceiver, iF);
}

private BroadcastReceiver mReceiver = new BroadcastReceiver() {

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        String action = intent.getAction();
        String cmd = intent.getStringExtra("command");
        Log.v("tag ", action + " / " + cmd);
        String artist = intent.getStringExtra("artist");
        String album = intent.getStringExtra("album");
        String track = intent.getStringExtra("track");
        Log.v("tag", artist + ":" + album + ":" + track);
        Toast.makeText(CurrentMusicTrackInfoActivity.this, track, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }
};

And it works, but only while the activity is running. So I tried to make a static broadcastreceiver:

<receiver
    android:name=".receiver.MusicBroadcastReceiver"
    android:exported="false">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="com.android.music.metachanged" />
        <action android:name="com.android.music.playstatechanged" />
        <action android:name="com.android.music.playbackcomplete" />
        <action android:name="com.android.music.queuechanged" />
    </intent-filter>
</receiver>

The class:

public class MusicBroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    public MusicBroadcastReceiver() {
    }

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        String action = intent.getAction();
        String cmd = intent.getStringExtra("command");
        Log.v("tag ", action + " / " + cmd);
        String artist = intent.getStringExtra("artist");
        String album = intent.getStringExtra("album");
        String track = intent.getStringExtra("track");
        Log.v("tag", artist + ":" + album + ":" + track);
        Toast.makeText(context, track, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }
}

And it doesn't work. I started searching and I found this question, which claims that the code above should work. But it doesn't, onReceive is not called when I start playing music or skip a track. Imust be doing something very wrong, but I can't figure out what.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Try to set android:exported="true"

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/receiver-element.html

android:exported
Whether or not the broadcast receiver can receive messages from sources outside its application — "true" if it can, and "false" if not. If "false", the only messages the broadcast receiver can receive are those sent by components of the same application or applications with the same user ID.

Answer 2

There is info about the usage of "com.android.music.playstatechanged" As mentioned this method is used only for the standard player.

And this type of notification isn't described in API. Possible it was removed as obsoleted.