Background Tasks for Uploading Data? Xamarin Forms - Android / iOS

Question

Hey,
I'm currently trying to figure out how to use a dependency service to create an upload task for data that will still run after closing the app / minimizing / moving it to the background. I need to upload large amounts of data to a server and I'm not sure if I need a foreground or background service on Android and how the iOS equivalent would look like. The examples I found are mostly tasks that should be executed every X minutes and not as a one-time task.

I hope someone can help! Many greetings

Answer 1

Hi Uhlmann,

Welcome to our Microsoft Q&A platform!

For Android, to upload data in the background, you can try to create Android service.

A service is an application component which can perform long-running operations in the background. It does not provide a user interface. After startup, even if the user switches to another application, the service will continue to run for a while. About Android service, here is a Xamarin.Android documentation: Creating Android Services.

For iOS, you can call NSUrlSessionConfiguration.CreateBackgroundSessionConfiguration(String) Method.

NSUrlSessionConfiguration backgroundSessionConfiguration = NSUrlSessionConfiguration.CreateBackgroundSessionConfiguration(@"identifier");  
NSUrlSession backgroundSession = NSUrlSession.FromConfiguration(backgroundSessionConfiguration);  
NSUrlSessionUploadTask uploadtask = backgroundSession.CreateUploadTask(request, fileURL);  

It will create a session configuration object that allows HTTP and HTTPS uploads or downloads to be performed in the background. The session with "background session configuration" will run in a separate process. In iOS, data is still transferred when the application is suspended or terminated. Here is a “Background transfer” documentation you can refer to: Background transfer and NSURLSession in Xamarin.iOS.

Best Regards,
Kyle Wang

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