Traccar Client 7.9 (sideloaded APK) won't autostart on Motorola with Android 14 — tried everything

carinavb 4 days ago

Hi everyone,
I'm having a frustrating issue and hoping someone here has solved it. I have a Motorola phone running Android 14 and I'm trying to run Traccar Client 7.9 installed via APK (sideloaded from the official Traccar website, not from Play Store.
The app works perfectly when I open it manually, but it never starts automatically after a reboot.
What I've already tried:

  • Battery optimization set to "Unrestricted" for Traccar
  • Location permission set to "Allow all the time" with precise location enabled
  • Found Motorola's "Background app activation" setting and enabled Traccar there
  • Installed MacroDroid (from Play Store) with a boot trigger → wait 1 min → launch Traccar macro. MacroDroid also never triggers on boot.
  • The "Run at startup" permission appears in App Info → All Permissions but it's not toggleable (shows as an info icon, not a switch)
  • Reinstalled the APK after temporarily disabling Play Protect (Play Protect had flagged the app as harmful)
  • Tried "Allow restricted settings" option — not available for this app
  • Checked Digital Wellbeing, no restrictions there
    Key finding: MacroDroid (installed from Play Store) also doesn't trigger on boot, which suggests this is a system-level restriction on my device blocking ALL apps from starting at boot, not just Traccar.
    My questions:
  1. Has anyone found a way to properly enable boot autostart on Motorola Android 14 for sideloaded apps?
  2. Is there a known ADB command that can grant the RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED permission properly?
  3. Why would even Play Store apps like MacroDroid fail to start on boot?
  4. The Play Store version of Traccar doesn't send GPS positions to my server — has anyone else experienced this with newer Traccar versions and found a fix?
    Any help is appreciated. Thanks!