On which thread does onReceive() of a BroacastReceiver registered with LocalBroadcastManager run?

Question

I register a broadcast receiver in a preference activity and send it a (sync) broadcast from a (Wakeful) IntentService. Apparently onReceive runs on the service's thread. Is this a fault of my part ? Is it documented behavior ?

Preference activity:

public final class SettingsActivity extends BaseSettings {

    private static CharSequence sMasterKey;
    private CheckBoxPreference mMasterPref;
    // Receiver
    /** If the master preference is changed externally this reacts */
    private BroadcastReceiver mExternalChangeReceiver =
        new ExternalChangeReceiver();

    public static void notifyMonitoringStateChange(Context ctx,
            CharSequence action, boolean isToggling) {
        final LocalBroadcastManager lbm = LocalBroadcastManager
            .getInstance(ctx);
        Intent intent = new Intent(ctx, ExternalChangeReceiver.class);
        intent.setAction(action.toString());
        intent.putExtra(TOGGLING_MONITORING_IN_PROGRESS, isToggling);
        lbm.sendBroadcastSync(intent);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onStart() {
        super.onStart();
        final LocalBroadcastManager lbm = LocalBroadcastManager
            .getInstance(this);
        lbm.registerReceiver(mExternalChangeReceiver, new IntentFilter(
            ac_toggling.toString()));
    }

    @Override
    protected void onStop() {
        // may not be called in Froyo
        final LocalBroadcastManager lbm = LocalBroadcastManager
            .getInstance(this);
        lbm.unregisterReceiver(mExternalChangeReceiver);
        super.onStop();
    }

    private final class ExternalChangeReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

        ExternalChangeReceiver() {}

        @Override
        @SuppressWarnings("synthetic-access")
        public void onReceive(Context ctx, Intent intent) {
            if (sMasterKey == null || mMasterPref == null) return; // if
            // onPostReceive has not run this will be null
            final String action = intent.getAction();
            if (ac_toggling.equals(action)) {
                final boolean isToggling = intent.getBooleanExtra(
                    TOGGLING_MONITORING_IN_PROGRESS, false);
                Log.w(ExternalChangeReceiver.class.getSimpleName(),
                    "isToggling " + isToggling);
                mMasterPref.setEnabled(!isToggling); // line 168 !!!
                refreshMasterPreference(isToggling);
            }
        }
    }
}

IntentService (LocationMonitor):

SettingsActivity.notifyMonitoringStateChange(this, ac_toggling, true);

Exception (E/AndroidRuntime):

FATAL EXCEPTION: IntentService[LocationMonitor]
android.view.ViewRootImpl$CalledFromWrongThreadException: Only the original thread that created a view hierarchy can touch its views.
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl.checkThread(ViewRootImpl.java:4746)
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl.requestLayout(ViewRootImpl.java:823)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.view.View.requestLayout(View.java:15473)
    at android.widget.AbsListView.requestLayout(AbsListView.java:1819)
    at android.widget.AdapterView$AdapterDataSetObserver.onChanged(AdapterView.java:813)
    at android.widget.AbsListView$AdapterDataSetObserver.onChanged(AbsListView.java:5958)
    at android.database.DataSetObservable.notifyChanged(DataSetObservable.java:37)
    at android.widget.BaseAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged(BaseAdapter.java:50)
    at android.preference.PreferenceGroupAdapter.onPreferenceChange(PreferenceGroupAdapter.java:238)
    at android.preference.Preference.notifyChanged(Preference.java:1099)
    at android.preference.Preference.setEnabled(Preference.java:726)
    at gr.uoa.di.monitoring.android.activities.SettingsActivity$ExternalChangeReceiver.onReceive(SettingsActivity.java:168)
    at android.support.v4.content.LocalBroadcastManager.executePendingBroadcasts(LocalBroadcastManager.java:297)
    at android.support.v4.content.LocalBroadcastManager.sendBroadcastSync(LocalBroadcastManager.java:278)
    at gr.uoa.di.monitoring.android.activities.SettingsActivity.notifyMonitoringStateChange(SettingsActivity.java:54)
    at gr.uoa.di.monitoring.android.services.Monitor.abort(Monitor.java:241)
    at gr.uoa.di.monitoring.android.services.LocationMonitor.doWakefulWork(LocationMonitor.java:103)
    at com.commonsware.cwac.wakeful.WakefulIntentService.onHandleIntent(WakefulIntentService.java:94)
    at android.app.IntentService$ServiceHandler.handleMessage(IntentService.java:65)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
    at android.os.HandlerThread.run(HandlerThread.java:60)

On an emulator API 17

Answer 1

sendBroadcastSync() is indeed run on the thread it is called from (except if there is a race going on). Its implementation should be:

public void sendBroadcastSync(Intent intent) { // directly calls executePendingBroadcasts
        if (sendBroadcast(intent)) {
            executePendingBroadcasts();
        }
}

The race part I am not sure about enters via the sendBroadcast() call which returns true if it found any matching receiver (registered with LBM for this intent), after sending a message to a private handler associated with the main loop - abbreviated:

@Override
public boolean sendBroadcast(Intent intent) {
    synchronized (mReceivers) {
        final String action = intent.getAction();
        final ArrayList<ReceiverRecord> entries = mActions.get(action);
        if (entries == null) return false; // no receivers for that action
        ArrayList<ReceiverRecord> receivers = new ArrayList<ReceiverRecord>();
        for (ReceiverRecord receiver : entries) {
            if (receiver.broadcasting) continue;
            // match the intent
            int match = receiver.filter.match(action,
                intent.resolveTypeIfNeeded(mAppContext.getContentResolver()),
                intent.getScheme(), intent.getData(),
                intent.getCategories(), "LocalBroadcastManager");
            if (match >= 0) {
                receivers.add(receiver);
                receiver.broadcasting = true;
            }
        }
        final int size = receivers.size();
        if (size == 0) return false; // no receivers for this intent
        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
            receivers.get(i).broadcasting = false;
        }
        mPendingBroadcasts.add(new BroadcastRecord(intent, receivers));
        if (!mHandler.hasMessages(MSG_EXEC_PENDING_BROADCASTS)) {
            mHandler.sendEmptyMessage(MSG_EXEC_PENDING_BROADCASTS);
        }
        return true;
    }
}

where:

    mHandler = new Handler(context.getMainLooper()) {

        @Override
        public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
            switch (msg.what) {
                case MSG_EXEC_PENDING_BROADCASTS:
                    executePendingBroadcasts();
                    break;
                default:
                    super.handleMessage(msg);
            }
        }

I am not sure if there can be a race between the main thread and the thread sendBroadcastSync() is executing - so the executePendingBroadcasts() will run on the main thread. If not then executePendingBroadcasts() runs on the thread sendBroadcastSync is run and directly calls the onReceive of the receivers

One of these days I should look into why (in executePendingBroadcasts) synchronized(mReceivers) and not synchronized(mPendingBroadcasts).

Answer 2

I had been getting the same issue with the sendBroadcastSync(Intent intent) with the LocalBroadcastManager. When I had been trying to update the view from the onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) it threw the below exception:

android.view.ViewRootImpl$CalledFromWrongThreadException: Only the original thread that created a view hierarchy can touch its views.

Eventually, I came to know that it might not run on the UI thread and hence resorted to using the simple code below:

public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
            ....
            getActivity().runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    setProgressBar();
                }
            });
        }