[Bug]: Crashes on launch — setPriority(-1) when desiredAccuracy is HIGH

[lucasbstn]

Required Reading

• Confirmed

Plugin Version

5.1.2

Flutter Doctor

$ flutter doctor -v

[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.41.7, on macOS 26.3.1 25D2128 darwin-arm64, locale en-US)
    • Flutter version 3.41.7 on channel stable
    • Framework revision cc0734ac71 (3 weeks ago), 2026-04-15
    • Engine revision 59aa584fdf
    • Dart version 3.11.5
    • DevTools version 2.54.2

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 36.0.0)
    • Android SDK at /Users/lucas/Library/Android/sdk
    • Platform android-36, build-tools 36.0.0
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.6+-13391695-b895.109)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 26.4.1)
    • Build 17E202
    • CocoaPods version 1.16.2

[✓] Connected device (5 available)
    • Pixel 9 (mobile)  • android-arm64  • Android 16 (API 36)

[✓] Network resources

• No issues found!

Mobile operating-system(s)

• iOS
• Android

Device Manufacturer(s) and Model(s)

Google Pixel 9

Device operating-systems(s)

Android 16

What happened?

With no source change, the Android app started crashing on launch — Gradle resolved the freshly published tslocationmanager 4.1.5 (the plugin declares the floating range 4.1.+).

TSLocationManager.buildLocationRequest() ends up calling LocationRequest.setPriority(-1), and play-services-location 21.x rejects it:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: priority -1 must be a Priority.PRIORITY_* constant

The -1 is the Dart-side DESIRED_ACCURACY_HIGH constant. In 4.1.3, GeoState.androidDesiredAccuracy() always ran it through AccuracyTranslator.toAndroid (-1 → 100). In 4.1.5, that translation is gated on a new useCLLocationAccuracy flag that is false by default, so the raw -1 reaches setPriority.

Expected: desiredAccuracy: DesiredAccuracy.high should map to Priority.PRIORITY_HIGH_ACCURACY (100), as in 4.1.3.

Workaround: pinning tslocationmanagerVersion = "4.1.3" in android/build.gradle.kts restores the pre-regression behavior.

Plugin Code and/or Config

bg.GeoConfig _buildGeoConfig() {
  if (defaultTargetPlatform == TargetPlatform.android) {
    return bg.GeoConfig(
      desiredAccuracy: bg.DesiredAccuracy.high, // = Config.DESIRED_ACCURACY_HIGH = -1
      disableLocationAuthorizationAlert: true,
      showsBackgroundLocationIndicator: false,
      locationAuthorizationRequest: 'Any',
      distanceFilter: 50,
    );
  }
  return bg.GeoConfig(
    desiredAccuracy: bg.DesiredAccuracy.high,
    disableLocationAuthorizationAlert: true,
    showsBackgroundLocationIndicator: false,
    locationAuthorizationRequest: 'Any',
    distanceFilter: 50,
  );
}

bg.AppConfig _buildAppConfig() {
  if (defaultTargetPlatform == TargetPlatform.android) {
    return bg.AppConfig(
      enableHeadless: true,
      stopOnTerminate: false,
      startOnBoot: true,
      notification: bg.Notification(
        title: 'JobSnap',
        text: 'Running in the background to keep your time accurate',
        smallIcon: 'drawable/notif_icon',
        largeIcon: 'drawable/notif_icon',
      ),
      backgroundPermissionRationale: bg.PermissionRationale(
        title: 'Enable Auto Clock In/Out with GPS.',
        message: 'To reliably clock you in and out, please enable '
            '{backgroundPermissionOptionLabel} location permission',
        positiveAction: 'Change to {backgroundPermissionOptionLabel}',
        negativeAction: 'Cancel',
      ),
    );
  }
  return bg.AppConfig(stopOnTerminate: false, startOnBoot: true);
}

await bg.BackgroundGeolocation.ready(
  bg.Config(
    reset: true,
    foregroundService: true,
    extras: {'user_id': userId},
    geolocation: _buildGeoConfig(),
    app: _buildAppConfig(),
    logger: bg.LoggerConfig(
      debug: kDebugMode,
      logLevel: bg.LogLevel.debug,
      logMaxDays: 7,
    ),
  ),
);

Relevant log output

Cold-launch crash via `FgsLaunchGate.handleColdLaunch` — clearest single trace:


05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime: Process: app.swx.jobsnap, PID: 19130
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start receiver com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.service.FgsLaunchGate
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleReceiver(ActivityThread.java:5335)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2741)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:367)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:9333)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:566)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:929)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime: Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: priority -1 must be a Priority.PRIORITY_* constant
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.google.android.gms.common.internal.K.b(SourceFile:10)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at h4.F.b(SourceFile:31)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager.buildLocationRequest(SourceFile:83)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager.requestLocationUpdates(SourceFile:53)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.service.TrackingService.e(SourceFile:24)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.adapter.BackgroundGeolocation.d(SourceFile:20)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.adapter.BackgroundGeolocation.b(SourceFile:4)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.adapter.BackgroundGeolocation.getInstance(SourceFile:3)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.service.FgsLaunchGate.handleColdLaunch(SourceFile:24)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.service.FgsLaunchGate.onReceive(SourceFile:73)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleReceiver(ActivityThread.java:5328)
05-07 22:13:15.740 19130 19130 E AndroidRuntime:     ... 10 more


Same `IllegalArgumentException` also fires from the foreground/background callback paths:


05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime: Process: app.swx.jobsnap, PID: 19197
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: priority -1 must be a Priority.PRIORITY_* constant
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.google.android.gms.common.internal.K.b(SourceFile:10)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at h4.F.b(SourceFile:31)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager.buildLocationRequest(SourceFile:83)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager.requestLocationUpdates(SourceFile:53)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager.onSingleLocationResult(SourceFile:433)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager$1.onLocation(SourceFile:22)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.TSLocationManager.a(SourceFile:16)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.location.g.onSuccess(SourceFile:1)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at com.google.android.gms.tasks.zzm.run(SourceFile:24)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:1095)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:367)
05-07 22:13:17.432 19197 19197 E AndroidRuntime:     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:9333)


Crash repeats until Android's `ActivityManager` flags the app as "crashed too many times, killing":


05-08 09:26:46.787  1875  2575 W ActivityManager: Process app.swx.jobsnap has crashed too many times, killing! Reason: crashed quickly
05-08 09:26:46.798  1875  2575 I ActivityManager: Killing 25128:app.swx.jobsnap/u0a650 (adj 200): crash
05-08 09:26:46.806  1875  2575 W ActivityManager: Scheduling restart of crashed service app.swx.jobsnap/com.transistorsoft.locationmanager.service.TrackingService in 3600000ms for start-requested

[trung-vu-ttlab]

Thank you so much @lucasbstn
same here, it was very stable in the past but this issue has been suddenly occuring in the past few days.
We did like this set("tslocationmanagerVersion", "4.1.+") in the past but now change to set("tslocationmanagerVersion", "4.1.3") as a workaround / temp fix.

Need to run test much more to verify if the temp fix works well.

[christocracy]

I'm aware. I released a regression bug in last version.

This fix is coming in a few hours

[christocracy]

cd android
./gradlew app:dependencies --refresh-dependencies | grep tslocationmanager

Fixed in version 4.1.6