Why do I occasionally see “MediaPlayer finalized without being released” in logcat even though I'm not using MediaPlayer anywhere?

Question

I am, however, using RingtoneManager to get Ringtone s.

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This information is already contained in this question and answer , but Googlers are not likely to find it unless they already know what to search for (at least I could not).

Answer 1

It's because RingtoneManager.getRingtone() internally calls open() on the returned Ringtone object. Ringtone.open() sets up a MediaPlayer , and this MediaPlayer does not get released unless you manually call Ringtone.stop() . Note that you do not need to actually play the ringtone for this to be true . This does not appear to be documented anywhere.

I don't know how much actual harm there is in neglecting to release a MediaPlayer (the documentation provides a worst-case scenario), but manually calling stop() on your Ringtone s before letting them get GC'ed will at least silence the warning.