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How to show DialogFragment from Fragment without null pointers due to fragment is not attached to activity?

I have an issue with showing DialogFragment inside Fragment. It does not matter what I try, I cannot get it to work everytime.
My layout consist of activity with navigation drawer and inside activity I am showing fragments. On those fragments I must show DialogFragment but for that, I must get context/application context/activity/whatever (depends on current year and weather) to show it.
In most cases it works ok but sometimes, even if fragment is constantly showed to user (no configuration changes or anything) it sometimes happen that fragment is not attached. I am getting that error in production as well so it is not just my device.
Good practice for that would be to check with method isAdded() and if activity is not attached then do nothing. I am not sure why this is good practice because users would not be happy if they loose their work since "save dialog" will not be shown just because Google is giving good practices as terrible ones!
So far I have this (among million combinations) inside my fragment:
private void showStoreDialog() {
if (someConditionIsOk) {
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.append(getString(R.string.someText));
sb.append(MINIMUM_LENGTH);
sb.append(getString(R.string.someText2));
Toast.makeText(getActivity(), sb.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
return;
}
...
Exception occures on this line: sb.append(getString(R.string.someText));
Cause: android.support.v4.app.Fragment.requireContext (Fragment.java:614)
android.support.v4.app.Fragment.getResources (Fragment.java:678)
android.support.v4.app.Fragment.getString (Fragment.java:700)
solutions.lunalabs.gpsracer.fragments.RecordingFragment.showStoreDialoglog (RecordingFragment.java:152)
I know I could solve this by routing through activity with callbacks but I do not want this because I should route all dialogs through activity even if it is needed only in one fragment. Is there a safe solution to this?
Thank you!

How to avoid multiple instances of fragments in Activity after app is killed and resumed?

I have an app with a Home screen that has 2 fragments (for now) and a navigation drawer. Currently I load the fragment A (Explore) on startup and load fragment B when clicked. From then on, I show and hide fragments. It's faster than recreating fragments on every click and my fragment A takes some time to load.
I've noticed that when I go to fragment B and go to another activity (let's call it activity 2) from there and leave the app and wait for it to be killed (or do something crazy like change the device language), and then come back to the same activity, it's still there. When I press back to go back to fragment B, sometimes (50% of times) the fragment B is drawn over fragment A. On clicking fragment A in the drawer, fragment A appears fine, but on clicking fragment B, there's another instance of fragment A and on top of that fragment B.
I've spent more than 2 days on this problem and got nowhere.
Here's my code for selecting the fragment:
private void selectItem(int position, boolean addExploreFragment) {
Log.d(tag, "selectItem: " + position);
FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
fragmentTransaction.setTransition(FragmentTransaction.TRANSIT_FRAGMENT_OPEN);
//add explore fragment - this is called on app startup, but also when the app is killed and resumed which results in 2 explore fragments
if (addExploreFragment){
fragmentTransaction.replace(R.id.content_frame, mExploreFragment, EXPLORE_FRAGMENT_TAG);
Log.d(tag, "Replaced frame and added "+ mFragmentTags[position]);
} else {
//add fragment for the first time
if (getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(mFragmentTags[position]) == null && position != 0) {
fragmentTransaction.add(R.id.content_frame, mFragments[position], mFragmentTags[position]);
Log.d(tag, "Added Fragment: "+ mFragmentTags[position]);
}
//shows and hides fragments
for (int i = 0; i < mFragments.length; i++) {
if (i == position) {
fragmentTransaction.show(mFragments[i]);
Log.d(tag, "Showing Fragment: "+ mFragmentTags[i]);
} else {
if (getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(mFragmentTags[i]) != null) {
fragmentTransaction.hide(mFragments[i]);
Log.d(tag, "Hid Fragment: "+ mFragmentTags[i]);
}
}
}
}
fragmentTransaction.commit();
//not null check for calling selectItem(0) before loading the drawer
if (mDrawerList != null){
mDrawerList.setItemChecked(position, true);
}
}
I know for sure, the explore fragment is getting created twice and the two instances behave independently of each other (just sharing).
I'm lost what to do next. This is an issue which can be reproduced very easily on low end devices but on a device like Nexus 4 (my test device), the issue can be reproduced by changing the device language.
Has anyone got any ideas about this? Basically if the addExploreFragment block doesn't get called when there is already an exploreFragment, this issue could be solved, I think, but I've been unable to do so. Also, I tried removing all the fragments and then adding the exploreFragment but same thing happens (50% of times).
Thanks! and sorry for the long post, I felt I should share all the details.
Update: When I change the device language and come back to the app on Activity 2 and go back to Home activity, it has the fragment B open which is good, but fragment A get recreated because it's a heavy fragment and the system probably removed it from memory. Again, that's ok that it gets recreated IF it got removed by the system but why does it get recreated when it's not removed. I believe it's something with my code, on every 2nd attempt (without closing the app) this happens, 2 instances of the heavy fragment A. Out of ideas.
But shouldn't fragmentTransaction.replace remove all the previously added fragments and then add exploreFragment. It's not working like that. Neither fragment A nor Fragment B are getting removed.

I found out something new and rather odd to me. When you use fragmentTransaction.add, the listeners you have, like DrawerItemClickListener, on the previous fragment, are still active. And this is even if you use fragmentTransaction.commit.
So...I suspect when the add method is used, you actually clicked on another hidden button or hidden UI that has an event listener on the previous fragment. I don't like this of course and the effect may be very confusing. Yes, this happened to me and I didn't understand why for a while.
For now, I think the easiest code fix would be to use the replace method instead of add. The replace() makes listeners inactive. If it works, then you can make a better/elegant fix.
Let me know what happens....

I started to notice your post
when I go to fragment B and go to another activity
When you interact or start another Activity, you start a new set of Fragments. Look at this Google webpage # Fragments Lifecycle.
For clarification of my claim, there is a quote saying
A fragment must always be embedded in an activity and the fragment's
lifecycle is directly affected by the host activity's lifecycle.
You might as well read few paragraphs of it, at least.
I am not sure what your solution should be. Perhaps make the fragments distinctive, different and clear between the two Activities you have.

How can I get fragment by tag?

I've found a lot of questions about that, but none of these can help me.
I have a "MainActivity" which have 4 fragments.
I need to access to one of these fragments, called "my_fragment", in an other simple activity, let's call "SecondActivity".
So, I try to put a property android:tag="my_fragment" in the LinearLayout markup XML of "my_fragment".
And after that, I do that in "SecondActivity":
Fragment frg = getFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag("my_fragment");
... in order to get my fragment. But frg is always null.
I try a lot of others ways, but in vain. This one seems better and easier to do, but perhaps I'm wrong.
Any help would be appreciate. Thank you in advance.
Fabien
EDIT
Since your answers that indicate that's isn't possible, I want to specify what I need.
I just want to get this fragment for reload it. I found something like that on an other subject on Stackoverflow:
frg= getFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(my_fragment);
final FragmentTransaction ft = getFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
ft.detach(frg);
ft.attach(frg);
ft.commit();
By the way, I just try to get the fragment in the fragment himself and it's still return null. With the method :
findFragmentById(R.layout.my_fragment)
it's the same result.
And after, I did :
findFragmentById(this.getId())
But it's make an infinite looper, I don't understand the reason...
EDIT2
Alright, let’s give some details :
I have MainActivity with ViewPager with 4 fragments. It’s not fragments at the xml sense. Sorry if I’m confused, I was training to Android very recently and somethings are not clear for me again. So, before yesterday and the read of #Bruce edit, I was thinking that fragments were the components of a ViewPager. So, #Bruce, this is why I can’t use your solution. I was trying to use findFragmentByTag with the tag applicate on my principal LinearLayout markup of my fragment - that is not, I repeat, an xml markup fragment.
This is my approach :
In my MainActivity, I click on the third fragment. I make a research for find some points around me. After an action of the user, still from the third fragment, I open the SecondActivity for authentification and on the user connection, I close this SecondActivity. Now, I need to reload the fourth fragment that will adapt his components in terms of the user situation, while keeping the same state on the third fragment, with points loaded. It’s why can’t use your solution #menion.asamm : I can’t reinstantiate the MainActivity, even if I simulate a click on the third fragment because it will come back in his initial state, without points loaded.
Thank you both of you #Bruce and #menion.asamm for your time in helping me !

Fragments are always owned by one activity, so you cannot directly access a different activity's fragments. The call you are making is looking for fragments within your SecondActivity.
Why do you want to do this? Once some UI is off screen (MainActivity), you usually don't want to do anything with those UI objects, because Android may have removed them from memory. If there is data in "my_fragment" that is needed by SecondActivity, one approach might be to save the data in SharedPreferences or a database in my_fragment, and then load it in SecondActivity.
EDIT
I'm not sure you're getting that it is important which activity you are running in. Here are two options for how to proceed:
If you just want to run the SAME instance of your fragment that was already running inside MainActivity, then maybe what you want to do is finish your SecondActivity to return to MainActivity.
If you want a NEW copy of the same fragment inside SecondActivity, then you can include the fragment inside SecondActivity's layout (or add it to some container later).
Also, notice that for your call to findFragmentById, the ID needs to be the ID that was specified in the layout file as the value of android:id (not the R.layout.my_fragment). It might be better to use a fragment tag, which you can either specify in your layout file or when you add the fragment.
Mainly I think you need to read Google's guide on fragments.
EDIT2:
Ah, I see, I have a similar fragment-refresh situation in my app. You basically need to get data from SecondActivity back to the fragment inside MainActivity. The approach I use is this:
Save the data from SecondActivity in storage (DB or SharedPreferences).
Finish SecondActivity so that MainActivity and your fragment are shown again.
Override onResume in your fragment to fetch the data you saved in SecondActivity.
Another option is to launch SecondActivity using startActivityForResult, and then process the results in MainActivity, passing them to its fragment.
Regarding how to find the fragment by tag, you first need to set the fragment's tag. If you are declaring your fragment in a layout XML, then you can do it there (and you can also declare
<fragment class="com.xyz.MyFragment"
android:tag="MyFragment"
android:id="#+id/my_fragment"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
/>
Now from inside MainActivity you can either do findFragmentById(R.id.my_fragment) or findFragmentByTag("MyFragment").
If you are NOT declaring the fragment in XML, but adding it directly, you can set the fragment's tag as part of the add call:
FragmentTransaction ft = fm.beginTransaction();
ft.add(R.id.frag_parent, new MyFragment(), tag);
EDIT3: Ah, you're using ViewPager to hold fragments. Now I understand better. They're still fragments, but getting access to them is indeed tricky, because Android constructs a fragment tag in some internal code. Here is another SO question on this issue:
Retrieve a Fragment from a ViewPager

Hmm if you really need just refresh of fragment attached to different activity, I suggest:
first activity start second activity with
startActivityForResult(intent, MY_CODE);
second activity when wants to refresh fragment in first activity, finish it's state with
Intent data = new Intent();
data.putExtra("REFRESH_FRAGMENT", true);
setResult(RESULT_OK, data);
finish();
back in first activity, you may catch this result by
#Override
public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
// check request code
if (requestCode == MY_CODE) {
// check result
if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
// check data
if (data != null && data.getBooleanExtra("REFRESH_FRAGMENT", false)) {
refreshFragment();
}
}
}
}
Possible?

Getting fragment instance in my activity

Is there some way I get already created currently displayed same instance of fragment in my activity. I DON'T to use
findFragmentById(int id), simply I never created that
findFragmentByTag(String tag), because I am not adding tag in every fragment .offcourse due to some requirement.
getFragment(Bundle bundle, String key), because I never am putting in bundle.
Although I may look like fool to mention that, but I want something like this. Is activity keep some fragment instance somewhere.??
What can be the best approach I can take to achieve this requirement.
UPDATE
Okay, so let me tell you why I can't use above methods. If I am adding various fragment in one activity, where I always want to come back to one fragment when back is clicked. (As we have in navigation drawer, u know). And unless there are inner fragment. so for that I don't want to add in the back stack.
Now even if I have the tag associated with my fragments, I cant say for 8 fragment if- else-if-else for getting the tag. That I know is not correct. So first two ways goes out of my option. Now third one. I exactly don't know where to keep it. And even if I keep it where will I get the bundle and key every time I just want my fragment.

You can get from fragment Manager
List<Fragment> fragList=fManager.getFragments();
for(Fragment fr: fragList){
String fragClassName = fr.getClass().getName();
if(fragClassName.equals(Abc.class.getName())){
Log.i("Fragment:","Abc");
}else if (fragClassName.equals(Xyz.class.getName())) {
Log.i("Fragment:","Xyz");
}
}

orientation change, FragmentTransaction, Activity has been destroyed, WeakReference

Alright. My first question here. And I already found some solution, but honestly do not really get the stuff that happens in the background. So perhaps there’s someone who could clear up this stuff a little bit. After days of debugging I’m just glad that it works... and hope I did not make some serious error. So let’s have a look.
I got some Main-Activity. Just a FragmentActivity extending JFeinstein’s SlidingFragmentActivity. Further I decided to go the fragment-way and just put any content (list-fragment, article-fragment, …) as a fragment into a container (to right of the sliding-menu); my main-container. So far, so good.
One essential fragment is my article-fragment. A ViewPager (with a FragmentStatePagerAdapter) - containing some pages with text and perhaps another list-fragment. Still no problem so far, until I decide to rotate the device. And to be more precise, rotating the device works too as long as I do not decide to update my article-fragment.
I understood (correct me if I am wrong) that Android handles the fragments state on its own when rotating the device. And it seems to be everything fine just until I want to reload/update its content.
Ok let’s dig deeper into that.
On first start I got some empty main-container. Then I am loading my article-fragment for the first time. Just getting the SupportFragmentAdapter, creating my ArticleFragment and replace the main-container with the newly created fragment - tagged. No rocket-science - just a simple transaction:
ViewPagerFragment pagerFragment = (ViewPagerFragment)
getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(TAG_FRAGMENT_ARTICLE);
if(pagerFragment != null){
if(pagerFragment.isResumed()){
pagerFragment.triggerReload();
}
} else {
pagerFragment = new ViewPagerFragment();
FragmentTransaction t = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
t.replace(R.id.id_main_root_frame, pagerFragment, TAG_FRAGMENT_ARTICLE);
t.commitAllowingStateLoss();
}
To avoid creating a fragment each time I reload my content, I’m trying to fetch the fragment before the transaction and - if it is found and resumed - trigger some reload on the existing fragment.
Now I rotate my device in this state. To avoid messing with the fragment state I left onSaveInstanceState() inside the fragment untouched. So I guess the fragment is just destroyed and recreated. And everything still works so far. But I think this part has something of a black box.
After that - normal startup, creating fragment and put into main-container, rotating device - I trigger some update. But instead of finding the old (recreated) fragment by tag, nothings found and a new fragment is created and inserted. At least tried to be inserted, because this is where I got the following exception:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Activity has been destroyed
To be precise, I get the above exception when finish my transaction with a commitAllowingStateLoss(). When I just commit() the transaction I get the following exception:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Can not perform this action after onSaveInstanceState
So that’s where the error comes up. And after ages of debugging and searching I found some hint on this question/answer to get the SupportFragmentManager on a WeakReference of my MainActivity. And what should I say. Since I implemented that, it works. I had to change my update-process a bit, but it works. But leaves some questions ...
The behaviour seems to be similiar. First creation works perfect. Reload just the same - fragment is found by tag. After rotation, article is still shown. And when I reload the fragment with that state it is not found by tag so a new one is created, but the commit()-request does not throw an exception. A look inside the debugger shows that the WeakReference is some other instance (other id), than the one(this) all of this takes place in. And thats where I lose the plot. ..
If some of you could give me some hints, would be great!
Thanks in advance!

try this:
commitAllowingStateLoss(); instead commit();