To reproduce: 1) Create class that extends TabActivity 2) on the tabHost add a tab which has content set to an activity which binds to a service via IPC The activity binds fine normally but not when used as tab content. DDMS reports (in my case): ActivityManager::Binding with unknown activity: android.os.BinderProxy@436dd168 Log messages in the service verifies that the onBind method is never called.
Using getApplicationContext().bindService instead of just bindService on your activity solves the problem as it is using the higher level application context.