How does using RxJava (or RxAndroid,etc) instead of AsyncTask in Android help prevent a context leak? In AsyncTask, if you execute it and user leaves the app, then the activity context can be null and the app can crash. I have heard that RxJava can help prevent this type of crash when doing threading. I also heard that it can do better error handling then the doInBackground method of AsyncTask (which handles errors badly). Most of the time I just return null (for example) in doInBackground if anything fails, but I've read that RxJava can return the exact error and not leak. Can anyone give an example?
Here is a small demo of a crash in AsyncTask if the user leaves the app while it's trying to report results to UI:
#SuppressWarnings("unused")
private class GetTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
pd = new ProgressDialog(getActivity().getApplicationContext());//can crash right here
pd.setTitle("Grabbing Track!");
pd.setMessage("Please wait...");
pd.setCancelable(false);
pd.setIndeterminate(true);
pd.show();
}}
And here is a doInBackground method call that does not send out errors that are useful:
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
String myIntAsString = 1/0 + ""; //this should give an error (how do we report it to the caller??
//or if we are parsing json and it fails, how do we report it to the caller cleanly. Can RxJava help?
}
I think the good thing about RxJava is if you have a bunch of tasks you can put them in a sequence such that you know when one finishes and the next is about to start. in a AsyncTask if you have more then one running, you have NO guarantee which task will complete first and then you have to do alot of error checking if you care about order. So RxJava allows you to sequence calls.
In regards to memory leaks we can have a AsyncTask as an inner class of an activity. Now since its tied to the activity when the activity is destroyed that context is still hanging around and wont be garbage collected, thats the memory leak part.
Here is where RxJava can help. if any errors occur at all then we can call the subscribers onError method. The subcriber can look like this:
public Observable<JsonObject> get_A_NetworkCall() {
// Do your network call...but return an observable when done
}
Subscription subscription = get_A_NetworkCall()
.subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
.observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
.subscribe(new Observer<jsonResponse>() {
#Override
public void onCompleted() {
// Update UI
}
#Override
public void onError() {
// show error on UI
}
#Override
public void onNext(JsonObject response) {
// Handle result of jsonResponse
}
});
or something similar - this is psuedocode . The point is you can report the errors more cleanly and switch threads in one line. Here we are reporting on androids main thread but doing the work on a new thread. After we are done in our activities onDestroy method we can simply unsubscribe to the observable and it kills it and prevents any memory leaks that we encounter with AsyncTask. This to me should be the replacement for any asyncTasks.
I use a combination of two things. First, RxAndroid is really helpful:
https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxAndroid
You can use AppObservable.bindActivity on it to bind an observable such that its output is observed on the main thread, and if the activity is scheduled to be destroyed, messages will not be forwarded. You still have to manage the pause/resume lifecycle though. For that, I use a composite subscription like this (pseudojava coming up):
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
private final CompositeSubscription subscriptions = new CompositeSubscription();
#Override
public void onResume() {
super.onResume();
subscriptions.add(AppObservable.bindActivity(this, myObservable)
.subscribe());
subscriptions.add(AppObservable.bindActivity(this, myOtherObservable)
.subscribe());
}
#Override
public void onPause() {
subscriptions.clear();
super.onPause();
}
}
Obviously you'd want to do more in subscribe if you want to do something with the data, but the important thing is to collect the returned Subscription instances and add them to the CompositeSubscription. When it clears them out, it will unsubscribe them as well.
Using these 'two weird tricks' should keep things from coming back to the Activity when it is an inoperative state.
Related
I use Retrofit and RxJava for network calls. For the first time I ran into a weird problem. For one of the calls the following error message is displayed:
HTTP FAILED: android.view.ViewRootImpl$CalledFromWrongThreadException: Only the original thread that created a view hierarchy can touch its views.
But the call is started from the main thread and it's the same result even if I remove any calls in onNext. So it must be something in the call, which is a solo call! This is the call in a presenter:
public void updateEmail(final String newEmail) {
disposables.add(AccountRepository.updateEmail(newEmail)
.retry(1)
.subscribeWith(new DisposableObserver<Reply>() {
#Override
public void onNext(Reply reply) {
}
#Override
public void onError(Throwable e) {
}
#Override
public void onComplete() {
}
}));
}
And this is the Repository call:
public static Observable<Reply> updateEmail(String email) {
return getMyApiService().updateEmail(email)
.subscribeOn(Schedulers.from(AsyncTask.THREAD_POOL_EXECUTOR))
.observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread());
}
And the Retrofit interface called MyApiInterface:
#FormUrlEncoded
#POST(UrlMap.apiProfileUpdateEmailUrl)
Observable<Reply> updateEmail(#Field("email") String email);
Nothing unusual, I have more than 100 calls like this.
Now if I add retry(1) as above, the call goes through, but the first call seem to be leaked, because it's still in the threads in the Network Profiler.
Furthermore, The call happens in a Fragment in an Activity with bottom navigation. If I switch to another fragment, all the calls there finish in the background without error, but the UI is not updated, I see a blank screen. But if I navigate to another activity and back, the UI is updating again.
The disposables is a CompositeDisposable object and it's cleared when the presenter is unbound. Disposable.clear in onNext() doesn't help.
I added five interceptors to the client for logging, headers, etc. Maybe they cause this somehow? Or something else? I'm trying to fix this for more than a day, but couldn't get much closer to the solution.
There is a listener for user verification changes -- that are coming from all the response headers -- in the main feed, so we can obfuscate the images. I wrapped the listener in a runOnUiThread() method and the leak went away.
I have a background thread which calls 3 asynctasks to perform tasks simultaneously. The calling thread acts as a Queue for 3 sets of these tasks.
So basically I need to call 3 asynctasks simultaneously and once they are completed I want to call the next three tasks on the queue and repeat.
However I am having trouble pausing the caller thread until the three asynctask finishes. As a result the next three tasks in the queue start running before the previous three tasks are completed.
So is there anyway to hold the caller thread until the asynctasks are completed. I know that you can user .get() in asynctask but it will not enable the three asynctasks to run simultaneously.
Following code is rather a pseudocode of the idea. Basically, you'll declare an interface which will check for firing next three AsyncTasks. You'll also need to maintain a counter to see if the number of received response from AsyncTask is multiplied by 3. If it is then you can trigger next three AsyncTasks.
public interface OnRunNextThree{
void runNextThreeTasks();
}
public class MainClass extends Activity implements OnRunNextThree {
private int asyncTasksCounter = 0;
public void onCreate() {
//Initiate and run first three of your DownloadFilesTask AsyncTasks
// ...
}
public void runNextThreeTasks() {
if (asyncTasksCounter % 3 == 0) {
// you can execute next three of your DownloadFilesTask AsyncTasks now
// ...
} else {
// Otherwise, since we have got response from one of our previously
// initiated AsyncTasks so let's update the counter value by one.
asyncTasksCounter++;
}
}
private class DownloadFilesTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
private OnRunNextThree onRunNextThree;
public DownloadFilesTask(OnRunNextThree onRunNextThree) {
this.onRunNextThree = onRunNextThree;
}
protected Void doInBackground(Void... voids) {
// Do whatever you need to do in background
return null;
}
protected void onPostExecute(Void aVoid) {
super.onPostExecute(aVoid);
//Got the result. Great! Now trigger the interface.
this.onRunNextThree.runNextThreeTasks();
}
}
}
Async tasks are meant to do things asynchronously.... so this can't be done in a straight forward way...
Even if you manage to do this, it basically defeats the whole point of asynchronous operation.
You should look for a Synchronous network operation.
Check out Volley... It is a google library specially made for network operations and it supports Synchronous operations
http://www.truiton.com/2015/02/android-volley-making-synchronous-request/
There are many other libraries available ... Retrofit is one other good library..
In my very first android project, I do some data manipulation, so I use multi-threading approach.
In MainActivity, I created multiple Runnable object and use ExecutorService to run all the threads. As my understanding, all threads are put in message queue and executed in turn. And the because the main thread is already in the queue, it will be executed before starting other threads. Is there any way that I can make the main thread wait for other threads to finish and then continue?
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
//call MyFunction here
}
private List<Pair[]> myFunction(int dataInput) throws InterruptedException {
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(12);
MyTask MyTask = new MyTask();
for (int i = 0; i < gallerySize; ++i) {
final int index = i;
Runnable runnable = MyTask.runLongOperationWithThread(new MyTask.DataCallback(){
#Override
public void onSuccess(double[] scores) {
// get data back to main thread
}
#Override
public void onError(Exception ex) {
//TODO: log this error out to file
}
});
executorService.execute(runnable);
}
// try to get back all data from multi threading and do some operations
return returnList;
}
Do Looper and Handler help in this case?
And please correct me if I have any misunderstanding in android concept and threading.
Thanks.
In Android, stopping main thread is discouraged. The system will tell the user that the app is not responding. However, you can "notify" the main thread that the background thread has finished its work. Once the main thread knows this, it will do something. It is common in Android, it is what AsyncTask for.
However, AsyncTask is used for a simple one thread. In your case, one of the solution is to combine ExecutorService and AsyncTask. In doInBackground method of AsyncTask instance you make, use ExecutorService like usual, and wait it to finish by either shutdown(); awaitTermination() or invokeAll(). Read this question/answer for more information about how to wait ExecutorService to finish.
private class WrappingTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Exception> {
protected Exception doInBackground(Void... args) {
ExecutorService taskExecutor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(12);
for (. . .) {
taskExecutor.execute(new MyTask(. . .));
}
taskExecutor.shutdown();
try {
taskExecutor.awaitTermination(Long.MAX_VALUE, TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
. . .
return e;
}
return null;
}
protected void onPostExecute(Exception error) {
// Notify the user that the task has finished or do anything else
// and handle error
}
}
In case of long running task
AsyncTask is a handy class to make threading and communicating (to main thread) easier. The problem for long running task is that the user can leave the Activity (and then come again), or there is an incoming call, etc. If you don't handle this Activity lifecycle with care, it is so "dangerous", AsyncTask does not handle this.
Long running task should be run in a Service. Note that Service is also run in the main thread, so the approach would be the same, unless you use IntentService. In case of IntentService, just execute all of the threads (formerly in doInBackground) in the onHandleIntent method and wait it there, this method is called on a worker thread.
Communicating Service with Activity and maintaining consistency of Activity's state through its lifecycle is a long story. You better read the documentation in "a full concentration" with a cup of coffee :D. This might helps:
Managing the Activity Lifecycle
Best Practices for Background Jobs
so I am coming across a weird problem I cant find an explaination for. I have an async task in which in its doBackground method does a wait until a certain variable is set then the "wait" is notified
private class TestAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Object, Boolean> {
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
Log.d("Test1");
}
#Override
protected Boolean doInBackground(Void... params) {
Log.d("Test2");
while (nextCardToPlay == null) {
wait();
}
Log.d("Test3");
}
}
Activity A:
protected void onCreate(){
a = new TestAsyncTask().execute();
}
protected void onPause(){
a.cancel()
}
So as you can see when the activity starts, the asyncTask is started. When activity is closed the asyncTask is supposed to be cancelled.
What I noticed is that if I open the activity, close it, and reopen it again then the asynctask is created and in wait mode (never cancelled). No problem. Whats confusing is that when I start the activity (while the stale asyncTask is there), then it seems a new asyncTask is started ( because the logs from OnPreExecute are called) however the doInBackground in the nextAsyncTask is not executed because the Test2 log is not showing.
Any idea why?
This behavior is not at all weird if you look at the documentation, which states the AsyncTasks run on a single background thread, i.e. sequentially. If you really want your tasks to run on parallel worker threads, then use the executeOnExecutor() method instead of a simple execute() and pass it the AsyncTask.THREAD_POOL_EXECUTOR parameter.
I need my Android app to periodically fetch data from a server using AJAX calls, and update the UI accordingly (just a bunch of TextViews that need to be updated with setText()). Note that this involves 2 tasks:
Making an AJAX call, and updating the UI once I receive a response - I use a simple AsyncTask for this.
Doing the above repeatedly, at regular intervals.
I haven't figured out an elegant way to achieve Point 2 above. Currently, I am simply executing the task itself from OnPostExecute(). I read on this thread at SO that I need not worry about garbage collection as far as the AsyncTask objects are concerned.
But I'm still unsure as to how I set up a timer that will fire my AsyncTask after it expires. Any pointers will be appreciated. Here is my code:
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
new AjaxRequestTask().execute(MY_REST_API_URL);
}
private void updateReadings(String newReadings) {
//Update the UI
}
class AjaxRequestTask extends AsyncTask<String, Integer, String> {
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... restApiUrl) {
//Do AJAX Request
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
updateReadings(result);
/*Is there a more elegant way to achieve this than create a new AsyncTask object every 10 seconds? Also, How can I update the UI if I create a timer here? */
new AjaxRequestTask().execute(MY_REST_API_URL);
}
}
}
Thanks in advance
EDIT:
I tried posting an answer but couldn't do it since I don't have the reputation to answer within 8 hours.
Well, so I found a solution. I'm not convinced however.
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
updateReadings(result);
// super.onPostExecute(result);
new Timer().schedule(
new TimerTask() {
#Override
public void run() {
new AjaxRequestTask().execute(MY_REST_API_URL);
}
},
TIMER_ONE_TIME_EXECUTION_DELAY
);
}
Are there any flip sides that I should be aware of when I use this? In particular, I am seeing lots of GCs happening in the LogCat. Also, I am wondering how an AsyncTask can be candidate for GC unless the onPostExecute() completes?
How can I "stop" the updates? One way I thought of was to make the very first AsyncTask instance as a member variable of the Activity. That way, I can invoke cancel(true) on it and hope that this will "stop" the tasks.
SOLUTION:
In case anyone is looking for something similar - none of the solutions I mentioned here work satisfactorily. They all suffer from OutOfMemory issues. I did not debug into the details of the OOM, but I suspect it could either be because of the recursion, or because of having HTTP-related objects as member variables in the AsyncTask rather than as members of the Activity (basically because of NOT reusing HTTP and other objects).
I discarded this approach for a different one - making my Ajax Calls endlessly in the doInBackground() of my AsyncTask; and updating the UI in onProgressUpdate(). That way I also avoid the overhead of maintaining too many threads or Handlers for updating the UI (remember UI can be updated in onProgressUpdate() ).
This approach also eliminates the need for Timers and TimerTasks, favoring the use of Thread.sleep() instead. This thread on SO has more details and a code snippet too.
Call postDelayed() on any View to schedule a hunk of code to be run on the main application thread after a certain delay. Do this in onPostExecute() of the AsyncTask to create and execute another AsyncTask.
You could use AlarmManager, as others have cited, but I would agree with you that it feels a bit like overkill for timing that occurs purely within an activity.
That being said, if the AJAX calls should be occurring regardless of whether the activity exists, definitely consider switching to AlarmManager and an IntentService.
I think the android way to do this is using AlarmManager. Or you can user a basic java Timer as well. I'd recommend AlarmManager.
Set it up to send some intent with a custom Action, and register a broadcastreceiver for it.
If the ajax calls are only executed in the activity you can just use a timer in the activity which starts the tasks.
Otherwise use a service which uses the AlarmManager and which connects to the gui via a broadcast.
The recommended way to do a repeated task, is via AlarmManager, as alluded to by Scythe. Basically it involves setting up a broadcast listener, and having AlarmManager fire off an intent to that listener at whatever interval you choose. You then would have your broadcast listener call out to the activity to run the AsyncTask. If you need a very tight timer (less than 5s calls I'd say), then you're better off using a Timer within a Service, and using AIDL to call back to the activity.
Instead of talking directly from the broadcast intent, you could also setup an IntentService which you can poke, and use AIDL to update the activity.
This is how I achieved it finally. Note that the AsyncTask cancel(true) method is useless in my scenario because of the recursion. I used what #CommonsWare suggested - used a flag to indicate whether any more tasks should be executed.
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
/*Flag which indicates whether the execution should be halted or not.*/
private boolean mCancelFlag = false;
private AjaxRequestTask mAjaxTask;
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
if(mAjaxTask == null){
mAjaxTask = new AjaxRequestTask();
}
mAjaxTask.execute(MY_REST_API_URL);
}
#Override
protected void onResume() {
super.onResume();
mCancelFlag = false; /*when we resume, we want the tasks to restart. Unset cancel flag*/
/* If the main task is Finished, create a new task and execute it.*/
if(mAjaxTask == null || mAjaxTask.getStatus().equals(AsyncTask.Status.FINISHED)){
new AjaxRequestTask().execute(TLS_REST_API_URL);
}
}
#Override
protected void onPause() {
mCancelFlag = true; /*We want the execution to stop on pause. Set the cancel flag to true*/
super.onPause();
}
#Override
protected void onDestroy() {
mCancelFlag = true;/*We want the execution to stop on destroy. Set the cancel flag to true*/
super.onDestroy();
}
private void updateReadings(String result) {
//Update the UI using the new readings.
}
class AjaxRequestTask extends AsyncTask<String, Integer, String> {
private AjaxRequestTask mChainAjaxRequest;
private Timer mTimer;
private TimerTask mTimerTask;
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... restApiUrl) {
//Do AJAX call and get the response
return ajaxResponse;
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
Log.d(TAG, "Updating readings");
updateReadings(result);
// super.onPostExecute(result);
if(mTimer == null){
mTimer = new Timer();
}
if(!mCancelFlag){/*Check if the task has been cancelled prior to creating a new TimerTask*/
if(mTimerTask == null){
mTimerTask = new TimerTask() {
#Override
public void run() {
if(!mCancelFlag){/*One additional level of checking*/
if(mChainAjaxRequest == null){
mChainAjaxRequest = new AjaxRequestTask();
}
mChainAjaxRequest.execute(MY_REST_API_URL);
}
}
};
}
mTimer.schedule(mTimerTask,TIMER_ONE_TIME_EXECUTION_DELAY);
}
}
}
}