Android Foreground Service - Notification that doesn't show Samsung Galaxy device lights

Question

I have written a small application that's intended to run as a service. A few times the OS has decided to shutdown the service when freeing memory, a behavior I'm well aware I cannot stop. The documentation states that to avoid this happening you can use a foreground service by invoking startForeground and passing a notification to this method.

I have written code to show the notification, and everything appears to be working okay. There is one particular behavior I'm not too keen on however, when I press the 'power' button on my device so the screen is switched off the two 'notification' lights at the bottom of my Samsung Galaxy S 1 light up. Usually this indicates that there's something 'new' to take a look at on the phone - such as a SMS or a missed phone call. I don't think it makes much sense that these light up when the only notification available is on to say there's an on-going service.

I understand I cannot have a foreground service without a notification.

I understand that you cannot cancel a foreground service without it not being a foreground service any more.

However, is there any way to stop the lights at the bottom of this Galaxsy S1 lighting up as though there's new important information available?

Edit: Here's the code I'm using:

Intent intentForeground = new Intent(this, MainService.class)
        .setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);

    PendingIntent pendIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(getApplicationContext(), 0, intentForeground, 0);      
    Notification notification;
    NotificationCompat.Builder builder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(getApplicationContext())
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_notification)
        .setTicker("Service started...")
        .setContentTitle("Vantage phone client")
        .setContentText("Service running")
        .setContentIntent(pendIntent)
        .setDefaults(Notification.DEFAULT_ALL)
        .setAutoCancel(true)
        .setOnlyAlertOnce(true)
        .setOngoing(true);

    notification = builder.build();
    notification.flags |= Notification.FLAG_FOREGROUND_SERVICE;

    startForeground(1, notification);

Answer 1

You are using DEFAULT_ALL for the defaults, which will also give you default lights, and apparently on your device, default lights including lighting them up. I would remove setDefaults() or limit it to be ones other than the lights (Notification.DEFAULT_SOUND | Notification.DEFAULT_VIBRATE).

Answer 2

My code was inside onStartCommand which was invoked more than once, this is perfectly normal.

Other parts of my application were calling startService to make sure the service was running.

I have since moved the code for building the notification and invoking startForeground to onCreate where it should only get called once.