App start block doesn't work in the background

[Ben Vinck]

I'm having issues with the App Start block. For testing, I made a simple flow, "Flow start > 5 second delay > app start".

When Automate is in the foreground, it works as expected, starting the app after 5 seconds.

When I start the flow and go to the home screen, (Automate still in recent apps,) the flow finishes, but the app isn't launched.

Looking in the log, it has no errors and seems normal. (Flow beginning > Delay > App start > Stopped at end)

I've tried to launch multiple apps and got the same results.

I'm using a Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro running Android 10 and MIUI 12. I've turned off as much of the battery optimization crap I could using dontkillmyapp.com, and I turned off the MIUI Optimisations in the developer options.

It's probably MIUI being stupid. Any help would be appreciated!

[Martin K]

Hi,

as I was having similar problems also on MIUI 12.5 and Redmi K30 Ultra Android 11, but I read great advice that solved the issue of Automate not working in background - in the Automate system settings - permissions, turn on the option to show notifications on lockscreen (and better yet, all of them). I know it doesn´t seem logical but apparently this somehow turns on some routines that allow Automate to work in background.

Hope this helps :)

Dátum: pondelok 14. júna 2021, čas: 15:40:04 UTC+2, odosielateľ: Ben Vinck

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

Xiaomi has lots of non-standard settings, i think there's one for starting app in the background as well, please read:

https://llamalab.com/automate/doc/faq.html#automate_not_running

[Ben Vinck]

Thanks a lot!

"Display pop-up windows while running in the background" is the one permission I missed!

Also having the notifications on the lock screen did help (but only sometimes?)

This was my first Xiaomi device and I think it's also gonna be the last. It's too much of a detriment to functionality.