Android- download file + status bar notification slowing down phone

Question

I currently have an asynctask which downloads a mp3 from a server. When the user starts to download it, a status bar notification is created. This displays the progress of the download in real time. My only concern is that the phone slows down almost too much. Is there any way to delay the progress displayed or a way to make my code faster? Thanks.

Code below:

public class DownloadFile extends AsyncTask<String, String, String> {
    CharSequence contentText;
    Context context;
    CharSequence contentTitle;
    PendingIntent contentIntent;
    int HELLO_ID = 1;
    long time;
    int icon;
    CharSequence tickerText;
    File file;

    public void downloadNotification() {
        String ns = Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE;
        notificationManager = (NotificationManager) getSystemService(ns);

        icon = R.drawable.sdricontest;
        //the text that appears first on the status bar
        tickerText = "Downloading...";
        time = System.currentTimeMillis();

        notification = new Notification(icon, tickerText, time);

        context = getApplicationContext();
        //the bold font
        contentTitle = "Your download is in progress";
        //the text that needs to change
        contentText = "0% complete";
        Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
        notificationIntent.setType("audio/*");
        contentIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 0, notificationIntent, 0);

        notification.setLatestEventInfo(context, contentTitle, contentText, contentIntent);
        notificationManager.notify(HELLO_ID, notification);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {
        //execute the status bar notification
        downloadNotification();
        super.onPreExecute();
    }

    @Override
    protected String doInBackground(String... url) {
        int count;
        try {
            URL url2 = new URL(sdrUrl);
            HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url2.openConnection();
            connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
            connection.setDoOutput(true);
            connection.connect();

            int lengthOfFile = connection.getContentLength();

            //make the stop drop rave folder
            File sdrFolder = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/StopDropRave");
            boolean success = false;

            if (!sdrFolder.exists()) {
                success = sdrFolder.mkdir();
            }
            if (!success) {
                String PATH = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()
                        + "/StopDropRave/";
                file = new File(PATH);
                file.mkdirs();
            } else {
                String PATH = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()
                        + "/StopDropRave/";
                file = new File(PATH);
                file.mkdirs();
            }

            String[] path = url2.getPath().split("/");
            String mp3 = path[path.length - 1];
            String mp31 = mp3.replace("%20", " ");
            String sdrMp3 = mp31.replace("%28", "(");
            String sdrMp31 = sdrMp3.replace("%29", ")");
            String sdrMp32 = sdrMp31.replace("%27", "'");

            File outputFile = new File(file, sdrMp32);
            FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(outputFile);

            InputStream input = connection.getInputStream();

            byte[] data = new byte[1024];
            long total = 0;
            while ((count = input.read(data)) != -1) {
                total += count;
                publishProgress("" + (int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile));
                fos.write(data, 0, count);
            }
            fos.close();
            input.close();
        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void onProgressUpdate(String... progress) {
        contentText = Integer.parseInt(progress[0]) + "% complete";
        notification.setLatestEventInfo(context, contentTitle, contentText, contentIntent);
        notificationManager.notify(HELLO_ID, notification);
        super.onProgressUpdate(progress);
    }
}

Hannahannah

Answer 1

I saw similar results, you need to not push the update the notification so often, i changed mine to update only update a few times a second. (e.g. in onProgressUpdate keep track of the last time you called notify, and only call notify if you're past 100ms of the previous call, or if you're at the max value.

Augustin

Yep, you're publishing too many notifications. Try updating only after the percentage has actually changed at least 1%. – Rattoon

Sounds good. Would you happen to have some sample code or just an idea of how I can implement it? – Hannahannah

@Rattoon - how could i track this? – Hannahannah

Well, just add an int variable and before publishProgress, e.g. if ((int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile) > previousProgress) { previousProgress = (int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile); publishProgress(...); } – Rattoon

so I added this in my while loop: int prevprogress = (int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile); if ((int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile) > prevprogress) { prevprogress = (int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile); publishProgress(""+(int) (total * 100 / lengthOfFile)); fos.write(data, 0, count); Its still running pretty slow. did i do it correctly??? – Hannahannah

Instead of using the percentage I would use both the percentage itself and a time value. If you are only handling the percentage when downloading small files you will push again too many notification updates. So the use of both contidions would be the best way to go. – Demetricedemetris

Answer 2

I had similar issue once, I solved it using CountDownTimer.

Similar to how @superfell suggested, you can call progress update of AsyncTask regularly while downloading file. And call the Notification Manager only at specific interval.

After calling start() of CountDownTimer, it will call onTick() function after every fixed interval of time, and will call onFinish() either when timer is timed out or when called explicitly. cancel() function will only cancel the timer and will not call onFinish() method.

class DownloadMaterial extends AsyncTask<String, String, String> {

    CountDownTimer cdt;
    int id = i;
    NotificationManager mNotifyManager;
    NotificationCompat.Builder mBuilder;

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {
        /**
         * Create custom Count Down Timer
         */
        cdt = new CountDownTimer(100 * 60 * 1000, 500) {
            public void onTick(long millisUntilFinished) {
                mNotifyManager.notify(id, mBuilder.build());
            }

            public void onFinish() {
                mNotifyManager.notify(id, mBuilder.build());
            }
        };
    }

    @Override
    protected String doInBackground(String... strings) {
        /**
         * Start timer to update Notification
         * Set Progress to 20 after connection
         * Build Notification
         * Increment Progress
         * Download and Save file
         */
        try {
            mNotifyManager =
                    (NotificationManager) context.getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
            mBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(context);
            mBuilder.setContentTitle("Downloading File")
                    .setContentText(file_name)
                    .setProgress(0, 100, false)
                    .setOngoing(true)
                    .setSmallIcon(R.mipmap.ic_launcher)
                    .setPriority(Notification.PRIORITY_LOW);

            // Initialize Objects here
            publishProgress("5");
            mNotifyManager.notify(id, mBuilder.build());
            cdt.start();

            // Create connection here
            publishProgress("20");

            // Download file here
            while ((count = input.read(data)) != -1) {
                total += count;
                publishProgress("" + (int) (20 + (total * 80 / fileLength)));
                output.write(data, 0, count);
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            return "Failed";
        }
        return "Success";
    }

    @Override
    protected void onProgressUpdate(String... values) {
        /**
         * Update Download Progress
         */
        mBuilder.setContentInfo(values[0] + "%")
                .setProgress(100, Integer.parseInt(values[0]), false);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(String s) {

        String title;
        if (s.equals("Success")) {
            title = "Downloaded";
        } else {
            title = "Error Occurred";
        }
        mBuilder.setContentTitle(title)
                .setContentInfo("")
                .setOngoing(false)
                .setProgress(0, 0, false);
        cdt.onFinish();
        cdt.cancel();
    }
}

It is a good practice to call onFinish() first and then call cancel().

Rend

thanks, but the small icon is missing... so you may want to add e.g. ".setSmallIcon(R.mipmap.ic_launcher)" – Unpractical

@MartinPfeffer Thanks. Edited accordingly. – Rend

Answer 3

I too experienced this problem. I was updating the progress bar WAY too often (even when the progress didn't change), here's how I fixed that:

        // While loop from generic download method.
        int previousProgress = 0;
        while ((count = inputStream.read(buff)) != -1) {
            outputStream.write(buff, 0, count);
            totalBytesDownloaded += count;
            int prog = (int) (totalBytesDownloaded * 100 / contentLength);
            if (prog > previousProgress) {
                // Only post progress event if we've made progress.
                previousProgress = prog;
                myPostProgressMethod(prog);

            }
        }

Now the app runs great and the user still receives a progress notification.

Irrecusable

Still, this is not enough if the download servers are too fast. – Silvas

@VSG24, huh? How about updating the UI/progress-notification even less then? It's not the "too fast" servers fault, it's probably your code, to be honest. – Irrecusable

Answer 4

I had the same issue that I was not able to update the progress bar notification even with an interval of 3 seconds so after hours of digging I came to realize the fact that whenever we update the notification the RemoteView object must be re-instantiated and re-initialized to the Notification object's contentView. After doing this I was able to update the Notification progress bar with an interval of 100ms-500ms for a very long period without facing any UI blocking.

Note: If you don't agree you can verify this answer by running this snippet after commenting out the marked line and see the difference. It may take about 5mins to start the severe UI blockage which will heat up your device and may stop functioning. I tried with an S3 mini with Android 4.2.2 and the updateNotification(....) method was called from a worker thread inside a service. and Moreover I already double checked it and don't know what happens when Notification.Builder is used for the same purpose.

Note: The reason to write this answer after 3 years of the question is because I wonder that I did not find even a single stackoverflow answer or other blog post handling this serious issue with this very simple solution.

I hope this answer will be helpful for other newbies like me. Enjoy.

Here is my copy pasted code that you can use directly.... I use the same code for updating a notification layout which contains two ProgressBars and four TextViews with a frequency of 500ms-100ms.

//long mMaxtTimeoutNanos = 1000000000 // 1000ms.
long mMinTimeNanos     = 100000000;//100ms minimum update limit. For fast downloads.
long mMaxtTimeoutNanos = 500000000;//500ms maximum update limit. For Slow downloads
long mLastTimeNanos = 0;
private void updateNotification(.....){
    // Max Limit
    if (mUpdateNotification || ((System.nanoTime()-mLastTimeNanos) > mMaxtTimeoutNanos)) {
        // Min Limit
        if (((System.nanoTime() - mLastTimeNanos) > mMinTimeNanos)) {
            mLastTimeNanos = System.nanoTime();
            // instantiate new RemoteViews object.
            // (comment out this line and instantiate somewhere
            // to verify that the above told answer is true)
            mRemoteView = new RemoteViews(getPackageName(),
                    R.layout.downloader_notification_layout);
            // Upate mRemoteView with changed data
            ...
            ...
            // Initialize the already existing Notification contentView
            // object with newly instatiated mRemoteView.
            mNotification.contentView = mRemoteView;
            mNotificationManager.notify(mNotificatoinId, mNotification);
            mUpdateNotification = false;
        }
    }
}

Grafton