Service Intent must be explicit: Intent

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I have an app some time now in which I call a service through a broadcast receiver (MyStartupIntentReceiver). The code in the broadcast receiver in order to call the service is: public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) { Intent serviceIntent = new Intent(); serviceIntent.setAction("com.duk3r.eortologio2.MyService"); context.startService(serviceIntent); } The problem is that in Android 5.0 Lollipop I get the following error (in previous versions of Android, everything works ok): Unable to start receiver com.duk3r.eortologio2.MyStartupIntentReceiver: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Service Intent must be explicit: Intent { act=com.duk3r.eortologio2.MyService } What do I have to change in order for the service to be declared as explicit and start normally? Tried some answers in other similar threads but although i got rid of the message, the service wouldn't start. android  service  broadcastreceiver share improve this question asked  Jan 8 '15 at 14:27 Tek 227 2 6 14

is this a service in your app? –  tyczj  Jan 8 '15 at 14:28 yes the package com.duk3r.eortologio2 is my app. –  Tek  Jan 8 '15 at 14:29 3   Only have an <intent-filter> on a component when you want third-party apps to communicate with that component. You seem to have fallen into the trap of assuming that you need an <intent-filter> for everything -- in reality, you infrequently need an <intent-filter>. An explicit Intent is when you designate the component to talk to in the Intent itself, usually using the constructor that takes a JavaClass object as the second parameter. That, rather than implicit Intents and <intent-filter>s, are what you should use for components local to your app. –  CommonsWare  Jan 8 '15 at 14:34  Possible duplicate of Android L (API 21) - java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Service Intent must be explicit–  regisd  Feb 20 at 22:04 add a comment

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any intent you make to a service, activity etc. in your app should always follow this format Intent serviceIntent = new Intent(context,MyService.class); context.startService(serviceIntent); or Intent bi = new Intent("com.android.vending.billing.InAppBillingService.BIND"); bi.setPackage("com.android.vending"); implicit intents (what you have in your code currently) are considered a security risk