[android] Android background music service

I am developing an entertainment app in android. I want to play background music, and I want to use service for that. App have 3 activities and music must be played across all activities. Also, when activity is paused, music must PAUSE and stopped when destroyed. Can anyone tell me how to do this ? any links or examples ?

Thank you.

way too late for the party here but i will still add my $0.02, Google has released a free sample called universal music player with which you can learn to stream music across all android platforms(auto, watch,mobile,tv..) it uses service to play music in the background, do check it out very helpful. here's the link to the project
https://github.com/googlesamples/android-UniversalMusicPlayer

I have found two great resources to share, if anyone else come across this thread via Google, this may help them ( 2018 ). One is this video tutorial in which you'll see practically how service works, this is good for starters.

Link :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2ffzsCqrs8

Other is this website which will really help you with background audio player.

Link :- https://www.dev2qa.com/android-play-audio-file-in-background-service-example/

Good Luck :)

@Synxmax's answer is correct when using a Service and the MediaPlayer class, however you also need to declare the Service in the Manifest for this to work, like so:

<service
    android:enabled="true"
    android:name="com.package.name.BackgroundSoundService" />

i had problem to run it and i make some changes to run it with mp3 source. here is BackfrounSoundService.java file. consider that my mp3 file is in my sdcard in my phone .

public class BackgroundSoundService extends Service {
    private static final String TAG = null;
    MediaPlayer player;

    public IBinder onBind(Intent arg0) {

        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        Log.d("service", "onCreate");
        player = new MediaPlayer();
        try {
            player.setDataSource(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() + "/your file.mp3");
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        player.setLooping(true); // Set looping
        player.setVolume(100, 100);

    }

    public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
        Log.d("service", "onStartCommand");
        try {
            player.prepare();
            player.start();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return 1;
    }

    public void onStart(Intent intent, int startId) {
        // TO DO
    }

    public IBinder onUnBind(Intent arg0) {
        // TO DO Auto-generated method
        return null;
    }

    public void onStop() {

    }

    public void onPause() {

    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        player.stop();
        player.release();
    }

    @Override
    public void onLowMemory() {

    }
}

Theres an excellent tutorial on this subject at HelloAndroid regarding this very subject. Infact it was the first hit i got on google. You should try googling before asking here, as it is good practice.

Create a foreground service with the START_STICKY flag.

@Override
public int onStartCommand(Intent startIntent, int flags, int startId) {
   if (startIntent != null) {
       String action = startIntent.getAction();
       String command = startIntent.getStringExtra(CMD_NAME);
       if (ACTION_CMD.equals(action)) {
           if (CMD_PAUSE.equals(command)) {
               if (mPlayback != null && mPlayback.isPlaying()) {
                   handlePauseRequest();
               }
           } else if (CMD_PLAY.equals(command)) {
               ArrayList<Track> queue = new ArrayList<>();
               for (Parcelable input : startIntent.getParcelableArrayListExtra(ARG_QUEUE)) {
                   queue.add((Track) Parcels.unwrap(input));
               }
               int index = startIntent.getIntExtra(ARG_INDEX, 0);
               playWithQueue(queue, index);
           }
       }
   }

   return START_STICKY;
}

This can then be called from any activity to play some music

Intent intent = new Intent(MusicService.ACTION_CMD, fileUrlToPlay, activity, MusicService::class.java)
intent.putParcelableArrayListExtra(MusicService.ARG_QUEUE, tracks)
intent.putExtra(MusicService.ARG_INDEX, position)
intent.putExtra(MusicService.CMD_NAME, MusicService.CMD_PLAY)
activity.startService(intent)

You can bind to the service using bindService and to make the Service pause/stop from the corresponding activity lifecycle methods.

Here's a good tutorial about Playing music in the background on Android