abnormal behavior of parent activity after finishing child activity - android

I have Activity A and I am calling Activity B from Activity A using setResultForActivity.
Now in Activity B when I press Done button I am firing finish() and it returns to
Activity A and it return down to onActivityResult. Now the issue is after when I fired finish() in Activity B , Activity A's onCreate doesn't get called and thats why
some of the custom listeners in my ListView isn't working , it seems that they are not bind.
so the whole activity respond pretty weirdly , can anyone has solution to this ?

Why a fourth answer? Because in my view, the others aren't fully correct.
Truth is, Activity A could have been destroyed in the meantime, or not. This depends on whether Android needs memory or not. So it is possible that Activity A´s onCreate() is called (along with the other lifecycle callbacks), or not. In the latter case, onActivityResult() is called before onResume().
While for configuration changes, the most efficient way to preserve the Activity's state is via nonConfigurationState, if you want to prepare for a restart of your Activity after it has been destroyed, you can use the InstanceState mechanism, because while Android destroys your Activity A, it will keep its intent and saved instance state to re-crearte it.
This stresses the absolute necessity to place initialization exactly in the callback where it belongs.
To test whether your Activity logic works regardless of whether Android destroyed it or not, you can use the DevTools setting "Development Settings" -> "Immediately destroy activities". The DevTools app is available on AVDs and can also be downloaded from Google Play.

Just place your onCreate() stuff in onResume() of Activity A except setContentView().

Just have a read on Android Activity Lifecycle : http://developer.android.com/training/basics/activity-lifecycle/stopping.html. onCreate() is only called when the activity is first created. You can do your list thing in the onResume() method.

Activity A's onCreate won't get called because the activity has not been destroyed. When an Activity regains focus from another activity, it's onStart and onResume get called, so I would put your bound listeners in those. They will also be called when onCreate is normally called.

After your child activity is finished() it return to execute onActivityResult which is in your case in Activity A. The onCreate method is not supposed and does not get called when killing of you sub-activity, a.k.a Activity B.
Please post some source code for us to work on and I will improve my answer! :)

Related

OnCreate method is always called

I read the Android documentation and I don't understand one step:
When I press a button my app shows the Activity2 with the startActivity(intent) method, then I use the back button and my app shows the Activity1 again. If I want show the Activity2 I press the button again, and my app always call onCreate to the Activity2.
The Android documentation says the method onCreate is called only when is starting or when is destroyed.
Why is this happening?
Thanks!!
Regars.
The OnCreate() method is called each time the activity is displayed (created). So each time you call the startActivity(intent) method, the OnCreate method will be called.
Check the Activity Lifecycle for more information.
It's because you pressed the back button when you were in Activity2, which by default destroys the activity you're currently on. You can override onDestroy() and print a debug message to confirm (make sure to call super).
Instead of retaining the same Activity2 object, you should leverage onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) and onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle) to save and restore your Activity2's state, respectively.
Technically you could use the Bundle object passed into onCreate(Bundle) as they are the same object. The docs recommend onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle):
Most implementations will simply use onCreate(Bundle) to restore their state, but it is sometimes convenient to do it here after all of the initialization has been done or to allow subclasses to decide whether to use your default implementation.
It's completely normal beheviour. You are calling startActivity() so activity is starting. That's all. This method is called also when you are changing configuration - i.e rotating the device. Moreover - it's also possible that Activity1.onCreate() will be called after pressing back button, while it's going background and can be disposed by system if more ram is needed.

SavedInstantState created during onSaveInstanceState not restored in onCreate

My app an activity (which now a subclass on FragmentActivity, although I don't think that matters), let's call it Activity A.
In it, a button navigates away to (say) Activity B by starting it via Intent using startActivity() with no special flags.
Neither activity has any special flags (SingleTop) etc in the manifest, not calls finish() etc. i.e. nothing unusual.
Activity A's method onSaveInstanceState() get's called and I save some state info.
In Activity B I hit the BACK key and come back to Activity A.
It's onCreate() method is called, but the Bundle of "savedInstanceState" is null, and so I cannot reconstruct the state I had previously saved.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong, and how I can ensure I get the state back.
BTW: On a configuration change (say rotate), it all works fine....
It seems strange that onCreate() is getting called when you go back to Activity A just by pressing the back key. In general it should just show the existing activity without trying to recreate it. I also think it also strange that onSaveInstanceState() is getting called when you start the other activity. In fact, the documentation states that it probably won't call onSaveInstanceState() when starting Activity B:
An example: when onPause() is called and not
onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) is when activity B is launched in front of
activity A: the system may avoid calling onSaveInstanceState(Bundle)
on activity A if it isn't killed during the lifetime of B since the
state of the user interface of A will stay intact.
From here.
I think something else is going on.
Activity A was never destroyed, therefore onCreate() should not be called. Can you please put some code up?

how do i get an activity to restart but not re-create?

Here is the scenario:
I have two Activities. Lets name them Activity A and Activity B.
Say Activity A is open. Now, when I go and open Activity B, Activity A is closed because the onStop() method is called.
Now, when I flip back to Activity A, the onCreate() method is called, but I want the onRestart() method called instead. How do I do this?
You cannot influence the livecycle of your app like that. There should be no reason to rely on onRestart(). If you use onStart() it will always be called no matter if the Android OS killed the app process in the background.
Check out this doc for further information:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#ActivityLifecycle
Damn beat me to it but here goes anyway
According to the Activity Lifecycle onCreate() is called again if the Activity was removed from memory because the OS deemed that another app needed the memory. In this case, you can't ensure that onRestart() will always be called for your Activity.
Like already stated you must find a different way of achieving your goal by using the other Lifecycle methods such as onStart() or onResume
I'm not sure if it fits your needs, I had to do an update service that starts the first time I open ActivityA (main Activity) and stops when exiting from ActivityA (not returning back from ActivityB),
I've placed the "start code" in onCreate() when savedInstanceState is null and the "stop code" in onDestroy() if isFinishing() is true

Android launch intent from onCreate

In my Activity onCreate method I create and Intent (say to launch the camera) and call startActivityForResult. The problem is that onCreate is called twice and the Intent is launched twice. Both are received in onActivityResult.
What is going on here? How should I automatically launch an Intent when my Activity loads? I tried calling startActivityForResult in onStart, but it is still called twice.
Thanks.
onCreate is normally called when you return from another activity, like in your example. The activity lifecycle docs by Google are a bit misleading in this respect (they make you think onCreate only called once during the app lifecycle).
Your best bet is to save your state in onSaveInstanceState, e.g. add a cameraCalled flag, and then check that flag in onCreate to prevent a loop.
onCreate may and may not be called when you are returning.
It will depend on memory situation and whether or not OS killed your activity. You will need to account for both scenarios. It is probably not doable when you call from onCreate. See this for more information on order of what is called on the return State of Activity while in onActivityResult question

Want to start a new activity but let the original activity finish first

I have an Android activity we'll call A which has a button and another activity B. When the user clicks the button in Activity A, I'd like to finish A (let both onStop and onDestroy finish running) and then start up the instance of B. When I put a finish() and startActivity() call in the button click listener, the instance of B starts up before the old instance of A finishes. Can someone help me figure out a way to do what I'm looking for?
What you are looking for is not possible and actually is against Android's activity lifecycle implementation.
Correction
It is possible with android:noHistory="true" tag in your manifest, but for what you are trying to do it seems wrong (read the EDIT)... Messing with the activity stack makes a non intuitive application!
Android OS doesn't let you control when activities will be removed from memory (or killed), and therefore all these fancy "Task killers" are so popular (DONT use them, they only make things worse).
When your activity's onStop() is being called, the activity stops completely, and it just hangs in your memory, but that's fine...
If you want to reset the state of activity A, or close the app when exiting activity B, just create a set of rules in both onResume() and onStop(), you can do everything you wish by creating a set of rules in those functions.
for example: have a boolean in activity A that turns true just before calling activity B,call finish() on your activity A's if this boolean is true
I suggest that you take a look at Android's Activity lifecycle diagram, and make sure that everything you do follows the best practice.
EDIT
I saw your comment, it seems like you are trying to create things that are already in your memory, don't recreate them, it's a waste of CPU time, memory, and battery.
Instead, create a static class with a singleton that will hold all your shared data !
I believe you're looking for
onPause()
which is what gets called when the activity is sent to the background. You can do whatever cleanup you want in there. onStop should only be called when a user is exiting out of your program (or launching another one)
onPause is a better place to do this cleanup. See the Saving Persistent State section of the Activity doc.
When an activity's onPause() method is called, it should commit to the backing content provider or file any changes the user has made. This ensures that those changes will be seen by any other activity that is about to run. You will probably want to commit your data even more aggressively at key times during your activity's lifecycle: for example before starting a new activity, before finishing your own activity, when the user switches between input fields, etc.
While I'm not definite that your cleanup is for user changes, the bold sentence above implies that onPause will complete before the next Activity is created. Of course that probably implies that you'll have to move some setup to onResume...
Alternatively, you could move all your cleanup code to a method, let's just call it cleanup and then just call it before you start activity B. You'll have to put in appropriate guards for your onDestroy cleanup too of course.
override finish() method.
implement cleanUp() method.
create boolean isClean=false in the activity
in cleanUp() write your clean up code.
call cleanUp() in your finish()
check for isCleaned in finish() or in cleanUp() if its true then ignore the clean
now before you start B , call cleanUp() and set isCleand=true
after you call B , call finish()
Start activity A
from inside A startService(c) and finsh A
from inside the service , start Activity B

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