Expo keeps stopping when the app is killed while background location methods

I have tested the background location methods with Expo SDK 39, and I still get the same behavior as before, i.e. the app crashes if it is “swiped” away while the background location task is running. I’ve tested it on emulators with Android 9, 10 & 11, as well as on a real device with Android 11.

I’m really disappointed, as I desperately need this feature to work and had put all my hopes in the new version solving these issues (as described in the CHANGELOG for expo-location / expo-task-manager).

No problem. Something like this is what i have.

import {useEffect, useRef} from "react";
import haversine from "haversine";

  // In android, sdk 38 managed workflow, we cannot use startLocationUpdatesAsync.
  // So we add a callback in a component to check for changes in the location and send them to the server....
  // works "ok", but will not work when the app is shutoff. We'll have to wait until SDK 39.0 for it to hopefully be solved.
  // https://forums.expo.io/t/startlocationupdatesasync-crashes-app-on-sdk-38-android-managed/42035
  useLocationUpdateForAndroid = () => {
    const lastPosition = useRef<ICoordinates>();
    const locationEnabled = useRef<Boolean>(false);

    // We should not be running useLocationUpdateForAndroid in a place where we don't have permission async, but "just in case", I put this
    // check here.
    useEffect(() => {
      Location.getPermissionsAsync().then(({status}) => {
        if (status === "granted") {
          locationEnabled.current = true;
        }
      });
    }, []);

    const runLocationUpdate = () => locationEnabled.current ? Location.getLastKnownPositionAsync().then(({coords: {latitude, longitude}}) => {
      let updateLocation = true;
      // If they haven't moved more than 15m from last reading don't persist their new location.
      if (lastPosition.current && !haversine({latitude, longitude}, lastPosition.current, {unit: "meter", threshold: 15})) {
        updateLocation = false;
      }
      if (updateLocation) {
        // send to server
      }
      lastPosition.current = {latitude, longitude};
    }) : undefined;

    useEffect(() => {
      const interval = setInterval(() => runLocationUpdate(), 30000);
      return () => clearInterval(interval);
    }, []);
  };

Then you run this in your main app navigator when the user is logged into your app. If they are signed out this component will not render and will not try to send background info to the server.