How to pause Android Background Runnable Thread?

Question

I have a method that is throwing an InvocationTargetException every single time right after onPause is called. Its happening on the line of "long totalDuration = mp.getDuration();" How do I go about stopping this exception?

/**
 * Background Runnable thread
 * */
private Runnable mUpdateTimeTask = new Runnable() {
   public void run() {
       long totalDuration = mp.getDuration();
       long currentDuration = mp.getCurrentPosition();

       // Displaying Total Duration time
       songTotalDurationLabel.setText(""+utils.milliSecondsToTimer(totalDuration));
       // Displaying time completed playing
       songCurrentDurationLabel.setText(""+utils.milliSecondsToTimer(currentDuration));

       // Updating progress bar
       int progress = (int)(utils.getProgressPercentage(currentDuration, totalDuration));
       //Log.d("Progress", ""+progress);
       songProgressBar.setProgress(progress);

       // Running this thread after 100 milliseconds
       mHandler.postDelayed(this, 100);
   }
};


@Override
public void onPause(){
    super.onPause();
    if(mp != null){
        try{
        mp.stop();//mp=mediaplayer
        mp.release();
        } catch(Exception e){
            Log.e(TAG, "Error in onPause()\n ");
        }
    }

}

Answer 1

// mHandler -> mHandler Handler instance
// this     -> mUpdateTimeTask Runnable anonymous class

mHandler.removeCallbacks( this );

Don't stop instantly, but prevent next scheduled call.

Answer 2

This is happening because in onPause you are calling mp.release() which is correct. However, your task still is attempting to use a reference to it after that point in time. In your onPause set a sentinel value that flags your mUpdateTimeTask to not run.

Somewhere in class:

boolean volatile sentinel = false;

Somewhere in onResume:

sentinel = false; // need to reset the flag

Somewhere in onPause:

sentinel = true;

Then in your mUpdateTimeTask check the sentinel if it is true do not run your code and do not repost it. You can then execute it in onResume.