Summary

Customers sometimes notice "app shutdown" followed by "app launched" events in their event timeline and contact us with concerns. This behavior is completely normal and expected - there's no cause for alarm.

The monitoring app is designed to run continuously and cannot be manually shut down on stock Android devices without triggering a tamper alert. When you see shutdown/launch events, these are caused by Android's own system management, not by user interference or app malfunction.

Why does this happen?

The monitoring app runs as an Android foreground service with a sticky flag, which means it's designed to automatically restart if terminated. Despite these protections, the Android operating system itself can still shut down and restart apps under certain circumstances - this is normal system behavior.

Android's memory management system actively monitors device resources and may terminate background processes when:

• Memory pressure occurs - When available RAM becomes low, Android's Low Memory Killer (LMK) will terminate less critical processes to free up memory for active applications
• System updates or maintenance - During automatic system processes, services may be briefly terminated and restarted
• Thermal management - On devices experiencing high temperatures, the system may reduce active processes to prevent overheating

Because our monitoring app uses the sticky service flag (START_STICKY), Android automatically restarts the service after any system-initiated shutdown. This restart typically happens within seconds, which is why you'll see the shutdown event quickly followed by a launch event in your timeline.

This automatic restart behavior is actually a sign that the monitoring system is working correctly - the app is properly configured to maintain continuous monitoring even when the system temporarily requires it to stop for resource management purposes.

You can also see the app shutdown and relaunched if the app is being updated.