START_STICKY does not work on Android KitKat

Question

One of my apps has a backgrouod service that uses the START_STICKY return code from onStartCommand to automatically restart when the system kills it. It seems that this is no longer working on Android KitKat. Is there any solution for this ? Should I be doing something different on Kitkat to keep the service running ?

Note: There is a similar discussion on the Android-Devlopers group about swiping the app from the recent apps list behaves. Could this two issues be related ? https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-developers/H-DSQ4-tiac

Edit: Saw that there are open bugs on Android issue tracker:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=63793 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=63618

Edit2: The same happens even if service is running using startForeground, in a separate process and with the flag android:stopWithTask="false" in the AndroidManifest.xml file...

Edit3: More related bugs on Android issue tracker:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=62091 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=53313 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=104308

Is there some sort of workaround to get the previous behavior ?

Answer 1

Seems that this is a bug present in Android 4.4, got around it with the following:

@Override
public void onTaskRemoved(Intent rootIntent) {
    Intent restartService = new Intent(getApplicationContext(),
            this.getClass());
    restartService.setPackage(getPackageName());
    PendingIntent restartServicePI = PendingIntent.getService(
            getApplicationContext(), 1, restartService,
            PendingIntent.FLAG_ONE_SHOT);
    AlarmManager alarmService = (AlarmManager)getApplicationContext().getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
    alarmService.set(AlarmManager.ELAPSED_REALTIME, SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() +1000, restartServicePI);

}

Found this answer from this post