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Activity which launched from sharing intent filter doesn't obey android:taskAffinity rule during onNewIntent

Currently, my app does accept share content from external app.
In order to avoid sharing action from interference with current running main app, I mention android:taskAffinity explicitly.
I also try best effort to ensure there is only one and only one com.xxx.MyActivity in task com.xxx.share by using
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:clearTaskOnLaunch="true"
AndroidManifest.xml
<activity android:name="com.xxx.MyActivity"
android:taskAffinity="com.xxx.share"
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:clearTaskOnLaunch="true"
android:theme="#style/Theme.Transparent"
android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysHidden" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<data android:mimeType="text/plain" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<data android:mimeType="image/*" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND_MULTIPLE" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<data android:mimeType="image/*" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
When MyActivity is being created for the first time (onCreate being called), I am able to verify it is inside task named "com.xxx.share".
However, if the MyActivity is being "reused" (onNewIntent being called), it is NO longer inside task name "com.xxx.share".
I am using the following way, to get the current task name - Is it possible to get the name taskAffinity which the Activity belongs to during runtime?
I was wondering, why it is so? How can I force the Activity (invoked via sharing intent filter) always
Launch in specified task name
Be the one and only one Activity in the task
p/s
If the Activity is launching within my home widget, or drop down notification, I can easily achieve such by using
<activity android:name="com.xxx.widget.MyActivity"
android:taskAffinity="com.xxx.launcher"
public static int getClearEverythingFlagsForLauncher() {
return Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK;
}
final android.content.Intent openIntent = new Intent(context, MyActivity.class);
openIntent.addFlags(getClearEverythingFlagsForLauncher());
But now, launching Activity via sharing intent is pretty out of my control. I can no longer supply getClearEverythingFlagsForLauncher().

Android: Recents starts incorrect activity

I am developing an android app which has 2 methodes of starting.
One is the normal way by pressing the app icon on the phone.
The other method is with a deep link from a website.
The deeplink also sends some data which the app needs to do some "stuff". However this should only be done once.
When the deeplink activity is finished it start the main activity. However when I press back (on the device) and open the app from recents it opens the deeplink activity again.
I could exclude the deeplink activity from the recents in the manifest. This also excludes the mainactivity from the recent apps, this should not be the case.
How do I prevent the deeplink activity from beeing started from the recent apps?
My Manifest:
<activity
android:name="MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme">
</activity>
<activity
android:name="DeeplinkActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:noHistory="true"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:scheme="app_name" android:host="test" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:host="test" android:path="/" android:scheme="app_name" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
To switch to the MainActivity I do the following:
Intent intent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
EDIT:
This post was marked as duplicate with: Android: Starting app from 'recent applications' starts it with the last set of extras used in an intent
However that post is regarding the same activity. I want to change the root activity so when I start the app from recents it does not start the DeeplinkActivity. Yes as a workaround I could check the Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_LAUNCHED_FROM_HISTORY flag. But then every time the user starts the app from recents the DeeplinkActivity is opened whilst it is not needed anymore.
Setting and or clearing aditional intent values does not seem to work.
I use information from the getIntent().getData()
If you still feel as if this is a duplicate please explain.

Your problem is that both DeepLinkActivity and MainActivity are in the same task, so when the user selects the app from the list of recent tasks, Android will either bring an existing task to the foreground, or if there is no existing task (with live/active activities in it), start the Activity that was the root Activity in the most recent task. You can't predict which Activity will be the root Activity, since the task could be started with either DeepLinkActivity or MainActivity, depending on which one the user chose first.
You really need to have 2 separate tasks to do this. One task will have your DeepLinkActivity in it, and this task should be excluded from the "recent task list". The other task will have your MainActivity in it.
I assume that MainActivity has the <intent-filter> with ACTION=MAIN and CATEGORY=LAUNCHER, even though your posted manifest does not show this.
Your manifest should look like this:
<activity
android:name="MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity
android:name="DeeplinkActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:noHistory="true"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:taskAffinity=""
android:excludeFromRecents="true"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:scheme="app_name" android:host="test" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
<data android:host="test" android:path="/" android:scheme="app_name" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
You definitely do not need launchMode="singleTask" for MainActivity and you probably don't need it for DeepLinkActivity either (that depends on what else you do with this).
Specifying taskAffinity="" ensures that DeepLinkActivity is not launched into the same task as MainActivity, and allows you to launch MainActivity from DeepLinkActivity in a separate task. NOTE: Without specifying taskAffinity, both activities will end up in the same task, even though you specify launchMode="singleTask" for both of them.
Specifying excludeFromRecents="true" on DeepLinkActivity tells Android that the task with DeepLinkActivity as its root activity should not appear in the list of recent tasks.
When you launch MainActivity from DeepLinkActivity, you should do this:
Intent intent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
and make sure that you call finish() on DeepLinkActivity.
If necessary you can also add noHistory="true" to DeepLinkActivity, but I don't think it is necessary. If the user is in DeepLinkActivity and gets an incoming phone call, after the phone call is ended, DeepLinkActivity should be displayed. If you specify noHistory="true", DeepLinkActivity would be finished immediately when the user accepts the incoming phone call.
Let me know if this is clear and works for you.

Android Intent with Cordova - New app instance launched for every share. Should be only one

I want to share url's from other apps to mine.
I am using this Phonegap Plugin to implement the intents:
https://github.com/chrisekelley/olutindo-app/tree/master/plugins/com.borismus.webintent
Intents are working, but everytime i share an intent from another app, a new instance of my app is launched, but i want to use one instance. If the app is already opened, it should be reinitialized and brought to front or restarted with the shared intent initialization.
I tryed android:launchMode="singleTop", but the same behavior occurs, app would be opened multiple times.
My manifest entry:
<activity android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|screenSize"
android:name=".StartActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:launchMode="singleTop" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"></action>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"></category>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"></category>
<data android:mimeType="text/plain" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
<data android:mimeType="text/plain" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
These is no initialization in my MainActivity because the intents would be initialized from javascript with a own function (See PG plugin above).
Edit: I tryed to use android:launchMode="singleInstance". Now on every share request my app would be brought to top, but the intent is not initialized. How can i initialize the incoming intent request again with cordova, if the app is already started?
Thank you!

I'm not sure how to workaround this. But i'm pretty sure that even if your code is launchMode="singleInstance" or singleTask, the OS will open an different Instance for each intent.action.
The only way to workaround i did find is creating a empty activity that calls your activity with a unique intent.action.
final Intent myIntent = new Intent(this,
MainActivity.class);
myIntent.setAction("android.intent.action.MAIN"); //myIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
startActivity(myIntent);
You can do a listening service. When you try to share the service get launched and it opens your activity if one intent.action aways.

Intent filter works only once

I have an activity called "MainActivity", this is my main activity which declared in the manifest file as launcher:
<activity
android:name="com.example.tester.MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.VOICE_COMMAND" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
The VOICE_COMMAND works only one time and then nothing is happen.
I have tried to separate it into 2 activities: 1 activity is the main and the other is associated with the VOICE_COMMAND intent filter, and still, the application works only once.
If it's separated into 2 activities it works fine only when the application starts immediately from the launcher, but if the application starts from the second activity (with the VOICE_COMMAND intent filter) it works only once.
Any suggestion?
Thank you

I have found the answer:
Setting the attribute:
android:launchMode="singleTask"
and it works fine.
Thank you

How the android app's first activity launched?

when we created a helloworld application using ADT, The "MainActivity" will be loaded, Because every program has a entry, such as the "main" function, For android apps, We can declare many activities in the file called "AndroidManifest.xml", So I wanna know how this activity launched by android framework? which is android apps "main" entry ?

Manifest tells android which activity to launch. Actually, when you click app icon, OS consults with application's manifest file and looks for the launcher activity. You can declare any activity as your launcher by writing this inside your activity tag in manifest.
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
Manifest always acts as interface between your application and OS. It provides all the information about your app to OS like what are the permissions, what activities, what receivers you are using in your app including your LAUNCHER ACTIVITY.

Only one activity should have the "main" action and "launcher" category...
So in the AndroidManifest.xml file, you should essentially have only one:
action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"
category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"
Activities will very often need to support the CATEGORY_DEFAULT so that they can be found by Context.startActivity(). So, CATEGORY_DEFAULT can appear number of times.
Android does not grab whichever one appears first in the manifest but it starts with activity having CATEGORY_LAUNCHER.
CATEGORY_LAUNCHER : The activity can be the initial activity of a task and is listed in the top-level application launcher.

because of this
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

the activity declared with intent filter
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
will be launched first.
<activity
android:name="com.example.hello.HelloActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>