PendingIntent does not send Intent extras

Question

My MainActicity starts RefreshService with a Intent which has a boolean extra called isNextWeek.

My RefreshService makes a Notification which starts my MainActivity when the user clicks on it.

this looks like this:

    Log.d("Refresh", "RefreshService got: isNextWeek: " + String.valueOf(isNextWeek));

    Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
    notificationIntent.putExtra(MainActivity.IS_NEXT_WEEK, isNextWeek);

    Log.d("Refresh", "RefreshService put in Intent: isNextWeek: " + String.valueOf(notificationIntent.getBooleanExtra(MainActivity.IS_NEXT_WEEK,false)));
    pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, notificationIntent, 0);

    builder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this).setContentTitle("Title").setContentText("ContentText").setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_notification).setContentIntent(pendingIntent);
    notification = builder.build();
    // Hide the notification after its selected
    notification.flags |= Notification.FLAG_AUTO_CANCEL;
    notificationManager.notify(NOTIFICATION_REFRESH, notification);

As you can see the notificationIntent should have the booleanextra IS_NEXT_WEEK with the value of isNextWeek which is put in the PendingIntent.

When I click now this Notification I always get false as value of isNextWeek

This is the way I get the value in the MainActivity:

    isNextWeek = getIntent().getBooleanExtra(IS_NEXT_WEEK, false);

Log:

08-04 00:19:32.500  13367-13367/de.MayerhoferSimon.Vertretungsplan D/Refresh: MainActivity sent: isNextWeek: true
08-04 00:19:32.510  13367-13573/de.MayerhoferSimon.Vertretungsplan D/Refresh: RefreshService got: isNextWeek: true
08-04 00:19:32.510  13367-13573/de.MayerhoferSimon.Vertretungsplan D/Refresh: RefreshService put in Intent: isNextWeek: true
08-04 00:19:41.990  13367-13367/de.MayerhoferSimon.Vertretungsplan D/Refresh: MainActivity.onCreate got: isNextWeek: false

When I directly start the MainActivity with an Intent with the ìsNextValue` like this:

    Intent i = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
    i.putExtra(IS_NEXT_WEEK, isNextWeek);
    finish();
    startActivity(i);

everything works fine and I get true when isNextWeek is true.

What do I make wrong that there is always a false value?

UPDATE

this solves the problem: https://stackoverflow.com/a/18049676/2180161

Quote:

My suspicion is that, since the only thing changing in the Intent is the extras, the PendingIntent.getActivity(...) factory method is simply re-using the old intent as an optimization.

In RefreshService, try:
PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, notificationIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);
See:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/PendingIntent.html#FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT

UPDATE 2

See answer below why it is better to use PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT.

you have the question and the solution :D great. I think you should add it as an answer to the ques. +10s is better than +5s ;) — Muhammed Refaat, Apr 18 '17 at 07:15
Referencing to this solution: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1198558/how-to-send-parameters-from-a-notification-click-to-an-activity/47156455#47156455 — Muhammad Noman, Nov 07 '17 at 11:43
The FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT did not suffice in my case, since the same PendingIntent was reused by my widget. I ended up using FLAG_ONE_SHOT for the action that occurs rarely, and left the widget PendingIntent intact. — Eir, Apr 23 '20 at 08:43

Yuliia Ashomok · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-08T07:35:14.060

Using PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT not a good solution because of inefficient use of memory. Instead use PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT.

Use also Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP (the activity will not be launched if it is already running at the top of the history stack).

Intent resultIntent = new Intent(this, FragmentPagerSupportActivity.class).
                    addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);  
resultIntent.putExtra(FragmentPagerSupportActivity.PAGE_NUMBER_KEY, pageNumber);

PendingIntent resultPendingIntent =
                PendingIntent.getActivity(
                        this,
                        0,
                        resultIntent,
                        PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT
                );

Then:

@Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        try {
            super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

            int startPageNumber;
            if ( savedInstanceState != null)
            {
                startPageNumber = savedInstanceState.getInt(PAGE_NUMBER_KEY);
//so on

It should work now.

If you still have not expected behaviour, try to implement void onNewIntent(Intent intent) event handler, that way you can access the new intent that was called for the activity (which is not the same as just calling getIntent(), this will always return the first Intent that launched your activity.

@Override
protected void onNewIntent(Intent intent) {
    int startPageNumber;

    if (intent != null) {
        startPageNumber = intent.getExtras().getInt(PAGE_NUMBER_KEY);
    } else {
        startPageNumber = 0;
    }
}

This also works for PendingIntent.getBroadcast – Johann Jan 07 '22 at 16:25 — Johann, Jan 07 '22 at 16:25

Vikram · Answer 2 · 2013-08-03T23:59:31.737

22

I think you need to update the Intent when you receive a new one by overriding onNewIntent(Intent) in your Activity. Add the following to your Activity:

@Override
public void onNewIntent(Intent newIntent) {
    this.setIntent(newIntent);

    // Now getIntent() returns the updated Intent
    isNextWeek = getIntent().getBooleanExtra(IS_NEXT_WEEK, false);        
}

Edit:

This is needed only if your Activity has already been started when the intent is received. If your activity is started (and not just resumed) by the intent, then the problem is elsewhere and my suggestion may not fix it.

edited Aug 03 '13 at 23:59

answered Aug 03 '13 at 23:31

Vikram

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this appears also if the activity is closed and after that opened with the notification. – maysi Aug 04 '13 at 20:48

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 03 '13 at 23:05

Following code should work:-

int icon = R.drawable.icon;
String message = "hello";
long when = System.currentTimeMillis();
NotificationManager notificationManager = (NotificationManager) context.getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
Notification notification = new Notification(icon, message, when);

Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(context, MainActivity.class);
notificationIntent.putExtra("isNexWeek", true);
notificationIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
PendingIntent pIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 0, notificationIntent, 0);
notification.setLatestEventInfo(context, title, message, pIntent);
notification.flags |= Notification.FLAG_AUTO_CANCEL;
notificationManager.notify(0, notification);

In MainActivity onCreate:

if (getIntent().getExtras() != null && getIntent().getExtras().containsKey("isNextWeek")) {
        boolean isNextWeek = getIntent().getExtras().getBoolean("isNextWeek");
}

`new Notification(icon, message, when);` is deprecated – maysi Aug 03 '13 at 23:13 — maysi, Aug 03 '13 at 23:13
Anyway to do it without CLEAR_TOP? – richardaum Jun 26 '15 at 16:04 — richardaum, Jun 26 '15 at 16:04

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 22 '22 at 05:33

So the actual reason is that the PendingIntent will cache the previous intent if the intents only differ in their extras. In my situation no combination of PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT or PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT solves this as either the old intent will be replaced or the new one will stay the same as the initial one. You need to ensure that Android cannot cache the Intents behind the PendingIntent. The solution for me is to make them differ in their data attribute.

so in the original posters code you would need to ensure that the data attribute is unique per each combination of extras that you are attaching.

    Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
    notificationIntent.putExtra(MainActivity.IS_NEXT_WEEK, isNextWeek);
    notificationIntent.setData(Uri.parse("myapp://nextWeek/" + (isNextWeek ? "1" : "0"))

Alternatively you could probably also just add a uuid to the data uri (however, if you have lots and lots of notifications, it might be nice to cache them

PendingIntent does not send Intent extras

UPDATE

UPDATE 2

4 Answers4

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