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Android skipping the splash screen when re-opening the app after having pressed back

So my scenario is as such.
Let's say there is a MainActivity, which only job is to start, call installSplashScreen().setKeepOnScreenCondition { true } to show the Splash screen using the new backward compatible APIs, and then after checking some state it does startActivity(SomeActivity); finish()
Now we're on the SomeActivity and if we press the home button, the app is gone on the background. Then if we click on the launched icon, the SomeActivity is launched correctly, and the MainActivity's onCreate is never called, therefore the splash screen does not show again, and the SomeActivity shows instantly.
But if instead of pressing the home button, we press the back button, and the app is backgrounded that way, then when we click on the launcher icon, the MainActivity's oncreate is called again, and the splash screen icon flashes for a tiny fraction too making it look jarring.
My question is, does this sound like it's some wrong configuration on my part, or am I stuck with this behavior as long as I am not on a single activity architecture?

You are confused. Pressing the BACK button does not "send the app to the background". The default behaviour of the BACK button (assuming that you don't override this and provide your own behaviour) is to finish the current Activity. Normally this will take the user to the previous Activity in the current task. In your case, there is no other Activity in the task stack, so the current task is empty. This may appear to the user as "the app is sent to the background", but in reality there is nothing in the background. Your app's task is empty and so it is gone.
When the user then taps the app icon on the HOME screen or taps on the app's task in the list of recent tasks, there is no existing task to bring to the foreground, so the app is started again by creating a new task and launching the root Activity (in your case MainActivity) into the newly created task.
If you want the BACK button to just put your app into the background (instead of calling finish() on SomeActivity, which is the default behaviour) then just override onBackPressed() in SomeActivity and do this instead:
moveTaskToBack(true);

It seems like there is no solution to what I am facing as long as the Activity I want to resume to is not the Launcher activity.
From the the docs:
"Root launcher activities are activities that declare an Intent filter with both ACTION_MAIN and CATEGORY_LAUNCHER. These activities are unique because they act as entry points into your app from the app launcher and are used to start a task.
System behavior on Android 12 and higher
The system moves the activity and its task to the background instead of finishing the activity. This behavior matches the default system behavior when navigating out of an app using the Home button or gesture."
Reading the docs about the new back behavior on Android 12 and onwards tells us that pressing back when you got nothing else on the stack will act as if you pressed the home button.
There's a big exception here, and that is that when you re-open the application, if the one you just popped was not the launcher activity, it will then still need to launch that launcher activity and can't resume from where you left off in a hot state, exactly the reason why I am seeing the splash screen again.
So I think my best bet is to either ignore this for now, or fix my app to be a single-activity app, or at least keep the launcher activity be the top-level one that you exit the app from by pressing back
To indicate a couple of examples, if one wants to experience what I mean, the reproduction steps are to:
Open the app
Press the back button which will send you out of the app to the home screen
Click on the app icon again
As of today, apps like Google Photos, and Google Podcasts don't show the splash again. In contrast, apps like Google Maps, Twitter, Spotify do show the splash again for a brief second.

to call the launcher activity every time you have to clear the stack that means you have to use a flag in your manifest to tell your app not to keep activity in background try android:launchMode="singleTask" inside your activity tag in manifest the activity that you want to be killed everytime you go to background, and as far as how much time splash should be showing you can use timer for that after the timer is finished then your someActivity will be called.

How start another package ontop of the stack?

I have to app stacks like this:
A->B-C->D
X->Y
In Y I want to use getLaunchIntentForPackage("package") to get to D, however I get to
A. What launch mode should I use etc? I would like to use singleTask for ABCD if possible.
Also when in D and I press home and launch via the Icon for A again then depending on launch mode I don't get to D (that I would like), but to A. DCB are cleared.
I tried a lot of things but I just don't understand how it works. I don't seem to get a consequent behaviour.

getLaunchIntentForPackage just gives you the Main activity of package. In your first app i am guessing it is A. So if you try starting it from 2nd app (X->Y), it will start A and not D which is a different activity. So you are not getting to D.
When you press home and click launch icon for first app, if there is already a task for it, it is brought foreground. Looks like A, the app's main activity (A) gets invoked - not the stack top activity D. And B->C-D get cleared because you may be using singleTask launch mode for Activity A, which tries to take you back to activity in existing task.
So what you observe is expected. The launch modes are defined per activity, not per app/package level.
So to get from Y to D, you need to start activity D using intent flag set to FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK, this will ensure you get to the existing D, that is already on top in your first task (A->B->C->D)
To do the same from home screen (launcher icon) you may need to try below options for SingleTask mode, since you want to preserve the existing stack (A->B->C-D) , and simply want get to D; Quoting from the link:
"+ For launchMode=singleTask if there is an intent_filter in the
manifest the task stack is always cleared after returning to Home and
re-launching (returns to main activity instead of last activity).
+ For launchMode=standard re-launch from Home instead returns to last
activity in task (as expected).
+ If there is no intent_filter listed then even with
launchMode=singleTask re-launch from Home returns to the last activity
in the task"
So, set your main activity launch mode to standard, it will let you preserve the stack as-is (2nd +point above). You can still start this in singleTask mode using intent-flags (eg: FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK) from your other app. Intent flags override manifest launch modes, see here

Android app navigates to launch activity when coming from background

I have 3 activities ( say A, B, C were A-is the Launch activity). When I press home button when at activity C, app goes into background. After that, I took my app through all apps list menu. At that time, my launch activity is showing (activity A). When I press back button, It goes to previous activity (C). I want to retain in the same activity (C) while coming back from background. When I run application through Eclipse, It works fine. But when I send Apk file through mail and run it in device, It fails (previous problem occurs ).
I tried with
android:launchMode="standard"
AND
android:alwaysRetainTaskState="true"
in my launch activity (Login activity or A). Any body please help me, Thanks in advance.

Follow following steps to insure that you are following the right practice:
1. Make sure you are using finish(); on the Activity A or B if you want to finish it and dont if you want the back button functionality.
2. Try Implementing onpause() and onresume() even if you are not going to perform any functionality in them. Use super() for them there.
3. Also, in android when you start an activity by clicking on the icon instead of resuming it from already running activities, it exhibits a different behaviour.

How to restart app when a sub activity start from recent list in android

My app has two activities.
Main Activity : singleTask
Sub Activity : singleInstance
When launching app with touching app icon, main activity starts. And go to sub activity then press home button. Then Kill app using task Killer. It is a point that I want restart app when user select app from recent list, but app starts from subactivity. I tried to set clearTaskOnLaunch on main activity but it doesn't work.
Does Anyone know how to solve this problem?

Launcher not returning to the last-used activity in my application

I'm using a custom Launcher application with Widgets that are used to launch (and provide status updates) for an application.
The application consists of a few Activities - let's call them A, B and C for simplicity.
A is the launched Activity. The user proceeds from A to B and then to C (never in any other order).
At any time the user can press the 'Home' button on the remote control and return to the launcher application.
If the user then presses the 'Back' button on the remote control they always return to the Activity they were last using (A, B, or C).
However, if they click on the widget (rather than pressing back) the Activity that is brought to the front seems inconsistent!
So, here is an example of what happens
From (custom) launcher, use widget to launch application
Activity A appears
User presses a button that launches Activity B
Activity B appears
User presses 'Home'
Launcher appears
From (custom) launcher, use widget to launch application
Activity A appears NOT B
Sometimes I get Activity B instead of Activity A - but I'm not sure under what circumstances. I want to get the Activity at the top of the stack to be displayed and never any other Activity (Activity B in the example above).
I've read Google's documentation about the Activity flags ("single-task", "single-instance", etc...) but nothing seemed to jump out as the solution to my problem.
In my case, Activities A, B, C only make sense when run in that order - and it never makes sense to see a previous activity unless you explicitly go back to it.
I'm not sure if the problem is the way the widget is launching the application or whether there is something I need to specify in my manifest or something else.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Dan

Isn't that what's supposed to happen? Isn't your widget launching activity A? Would you expect it to launch activity B if you are asking it to launch activity A?
(Althought you say that you get B launched sometimes. Isn't this related to the app being forced out of the memory?)

I'm sorry, but this is not an answer, but rather some additional information related to that same question.
I have found a pattern for Activities when relaunched after home button is pressed.
See my question for all my research:
Android Activity Stack is not working as stated in the docs - last activity in task stack not shown
Hope this can be of help...
I have been reading that the suggested fix for this strange behavior is the use of a "Dispatcher" class as Main that will launch the activity based on the application state...or you can also keep track of all the activities opened that need to be restored...but this can become really cumbersome when having a complex UI application design.