Android start running JobScheduler at specific time

Question

I want to start a JobScheduler at a specific time everyday, and finish it after 3 hours.

I have the part of triggering the job every 20 min, and for 3 hours, but in JobInfo.Builder class there's no option for starting the job at an exact time.

Going over the JobInfo.Builder class overview, there's nothing there that sets the time for starting a JobScheduler.

Obviously, i don't want to run it for the whole day, and check that the time matches, this will drain more battery than needed, and is bad programing.

I was thinking of making an alarm to run at the time i specify and would trigger this job, but this seems to be a bit overkill.

 JobInfo.Builder builder = new JobInfo.Builder(NIGHT_SYNC_JOB_ID, 
 new ComponentName(context, NightSyncDataJobService.class));

 //Job starts at 11pm, and ends at 2am. Running every 20 minutes.
 builder.setPersisted(true); //Job scheduled to work after reboot
 builder.setPeriodic(Consts.ONE_MINUTE * 20);

 JobScheduler jobScheduler = (JobScheduler) context.getSystemService(Context.JOB_SCHEDULER_SERVICE);
 jobScheduler.schedule(builder.build());

If you have any other solution to the issue, beside AlarmManger that triggers this JobScheduler, will be much appreciated.

Roentgen

Answer 1

I achieved it in the following way (without AlarmManager), created a new Job (with a unique JOB_ID obviously), and told the JobScheduler to schedule it for sometime in the future using setOverrideDeadline().

Here's a snippet which might be helpful:

private JobInfo getJobInfoForFutureTask(Context context,
                                        long timeTillFutureJob) {
        ComponentName serviceComponent = new ComponentName(context, SchedulerService.class);

        return new JobInfo.Builder(FUTURE_JOB_ID, serviceComponent)
                .setRequiredNetworkType(JobInfo.NETWORK_TYPE_NONE)
                .setOverrideDeadline(timeTillFutureJob)
                .setRequiresDeviceIdle(false)
                .setRequiresCharging(false)
                .setPersisted(true)
                .build();
    }

Make sure to calculate the correct time offset at which you want to schedule the task and also remove any existing Job IDs from the JobScheduler.

Prot

Instead of scheduling it daily i want to schedule a job for specific days (lets just say for sunday,wednesday, saturday) ,Is it possible using JobSchedular @Prot – Intercom

Not sure, the only way I can think is you kill the existing job and reschedule a future one with the offset. Need to involve some math in it :D – Prot

how do you schedule this job periodically ? like the Op wants every 20 minutes ? As per documentation " it doesn't make sense setting this property on a periodic job, doing so will throw an IllegalArgumentException when build() is called." – Suzansuzann

Answer 2

adding setMinimumLatency on jobInfo with the deference of the current time and the target time solves this issue.

JobInfo jobInfo = new JobInfo.Builder(1, componentName)
                .setPersisted(true)
                .setBackoffCriteria(6000, JobInfo.BACKOFF_POLICY_LINEAR)
                .setMinimumLatency(1000 * 60)
                .build();

for the example above the scheduler will work after 60 secs.

Zingg

It still dont allow you to set the job periodically for the same reason as @Suzansuzann mentioned – Endospore