Service.onUnbind() called even if there are active clients?

The point of the exercise is: keep the service alive, passing it from one activity to another.

1. Activity A calls bindService() on service S;


2. S.onBound() called;


3. A.serviceConnection.onServiceConnected() is called;


4. Activity A starts activity B;


5. Activity B calls bindService() on service S;


6. B.serviceConnection.onServiceConnected() is called;
   5a: from onServiceConnected() activity B calls A.finish();


7. Activity A is stopping, calling unbindService(S) from its onDestroy() method.

Expected behavior: Service S continues to exist happily until activity B calls unbindService()

Actual behavior:

1. S.onUnbind() is called;


2. S.onDestroy() is called;


3. B.serviceConnection.onServiceDisconnected() is called;

thus destroying the link and contradicting the documentation.

Why? What am I missing?

Update: Solved. From http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html:

A service can be both started and have connections bound to it. In
such a case, the system will keep the service running as long as
either it is started or there are one or more connections to it with
the Context.BIND_AUTO_CREATE flag.

Here's the code:

public class A extends Activity {
 
     private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass().getSimpleName());
 
     private String serviceClassName;
     private ServiceConnection feedConnection;
     private Messenger feedMessenger;
 
     private void bind(String argument) {
 
         serviceClassName = TheService.class.getName();
         Intent intent = new Intent(serviceClassName);
 
         intent.putExtra(Keys.ACCOUNT, argument);
 
         feedConnection = new FeedConnection();
 
         if (!bindService(intent, feedConnection, Context.BIND_AUTO_CREATE)) {
             throw new IllegalStateException("Failed to bind to " + argument);
         }
 
         logger.debug("bindService(" + serviceClassName + ") successful");
     }
 
     private void forward() {
 
         Intent intentB = new Intent();
 
         intentB.setClassName(B.class.getPackage().getName(), B.class.getName());
         intentB.putExtra(Keys.SERVICE_CLASS_NAME, serviceClassName);
 
         startActivity(intentB);
     }
 
     @Override
     protected void onDestroy() {
         super.onDestroy();
 
         unbindService(feedConnection);
     }
 
 
     private class FeedConnection implements ServiceConnection {
 
         @Override
         public void onServiceConnected(ComponentName className, IBinder service) {
 
             A.this.feedMessenger = new Messenger(service);
         }
 
         @Override
         public void onServiceDisconnected(ComponentName className) {
 
             A.this.feedMessenger = null;
             logger.error("Crashed " + Integer.toHexString(hashCode()));
         }
     }
 }
 
 public class B extends Activity {
 
     private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass().getSimpleName());
     private ServiceConnection feedConnection;
     private Messenger feedMessenger;
     private A activityA;
 
     @Override
     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
 
         bindFeed();
     }
 
     private void bindFeed() {
 
         Intent startingIntent = getIntent();
 
         String serviceClassName = startingIntent.getStringExtra(Keys.SERVICE_CLASS_NAME);
 
         Intent intent = new Intent(serviceClassName);
 
         feedConnection = new FeedConnection();
         // FIXME: BIND_AUTO_CREATE flag is missing
         if (!bindService(intent, feedConnection, 0)) {
             throw new IllegalStateException("Failed to bind to " + serviceClassName);
         }
 
         logger.debug("bindService(" + serviceClassName + ") successful");
     }
 
     private class FeedConnection implements ServiceConnection {
 
         @Override
         public void onServiceConnected(ComponentName className, IBinder service) {
 
             B.this.feedMessenger = new Messenger(service);
 
             logger.debug("bound " + className);
 
             // Finish the previous activity only after the service is bound            
             activityA.fileList();
         }
 
         @Override
         public void onServiceDisconnected(ComponentName className) {
 
             B.this.feedMessenger = null;
             logger.error("Crashed " + className);
         }
     }
 }
 

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