Android launch intent from onCreate - android

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

Related

Activity lifecycle method on app crash

Is there a method of the Activity lifecycle that is guaranteed to get called when my app crashes?
I put logs in all methods and crashed my app but I didn't see anything.
I couldn't find anything in the docs too.
I basically want to save changes in a database but ideally I do not want to do it in every update but rather in a method like onPause or onStop etc.
None of the lifecycle methods will be called if your Activity crashes.
However, for child activities started using startActivityForResult you do get a RESULT_CANCELED code returned in onActivityResult on the parent Activity.

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.

abnormal behavior of parent activity after finishing child activity

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! :)

startActivity on Android

so i've been trying to get my application to run an Activity via an intent and it works fine, when i then assign the finish(); method, it returns to the activity that called it. The only thing i don't understand is that i'm not sure if the callee Activity is put onPause while the called Activity is in-front. I've tried to setup a toast message in the onPause() method of the callee Acitivty but it won't appear.
I first tried to call the second Activity with startActivity(intentname) and then a finish() method on the first Acitivty, i then tried to use the startActivityForResult() (even though i don't really need to recieve any information from the called Activity) method and closed it with onActivityResult().
I can't find any information about the side-effects that these Activity methods has on a Activity that's calling another. So i'm wondering if anybody could help me out ?
//Thx in advance
According to the documentation for Activity, the onPause() lifecycle method WILL be called when another Activity is put in front of it.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#ActivityLifecycle
If the called Activity is is semi-transparent, then onStop() will also be called, but if your initial Activity is not visible at all, onStop() will not be called.
It is also of worth to note that when you call finish() on the called Activity, the onResume() will be called on the caller (and onStart(), assuming onStop() was also called)
To quickly answer your question: if activity A starts activity B, then A's onPause method is run. I think there might be an exception if B isn't full screen, but that's only a tentative memory from something I read in the documentation a while ago.
As for why your toast wasn't showing - did you remember to .show() it? I always used to forget to do that. Toasts can also get missed if they're triggered just as the activity is pausing, since its context goes away. There's a much easier way to test it - just use the Log method. For example, Log.d("My app name", "onPause was just triggered"); The purpose of the "My app name" string is to let you filter by it in LogCat. If you don't know how to display LogCat, and assuming you're using Eclipse, see this answer to another question.
got it to work , was a bit confused of the purpose with onResume(), i was suppose to decleare a onActivityResult() in the first Activity so that the second Activity would return to it right after finish()

added TextToSpeech to my activity and now my onDestroy is not called any more, bug?

I added TextToSpeech to my app, following the guidelines in the following post:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/09/introduction-to-text-to-speech-in.html
and now my onDestroy is no longer called when the back button is pressed.
I filed a bug report regarding this: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=7674
Figured i should also ask here if someone else has seen this, and found a solution?
It seems that it is the intent that causes the problem, i.e. the following:
Intent checkIntent = new Intent();
checkIntent.setAction(TextToSpeech.Engine.ACTION_CHECK_TTS_DATA);
startActivityForResult(checkIntent, MY_DATA_CHECK_CODE);
If I skip this intent, and just go ahead and create a tts-instance, it works fine.
Any clues to what is wrong with this intent?
Think I've figured this one out.
My problem is that I was assuming that onDestroy would be called when my activity finished, so that I could store the state (and preferences, et c). And I assumed that onDestroy would always happen before a new instance of the activity was created, so that the new instance in onCreate could load the state stored by the old instance.
This does not hold in general. It does not even hold true for onStop.
The solution for me was simply to save what I wanted in onPause. It seems I can count on this one being called before any new instance can be created. But since onPause is called in many cases where I don't need to save, I also check isFinishing(). I.e. if isFinishing() in onPause, then I save.
Note that it didn't seem to matter if I launched my activity in singleTop mode, I would still get two "alive" instances. One which was on its way to being destroyed (onPause was called but was yet to enter onStop or onDestroy) and one which was in onCreate.
Anyway, I hope I've solved it now.
Reproduced.
It appears that the key is where you call your initTTS() method (or equivalent) from.
If it is called from onCreate(), I also see the behaviour above (onDestroy never called).
Hinted by the doc for startActivityForResult (where calling from onCreate is a special case), i tried invoking the intent via a delayed message to my own Handler.
Now, onDestroy is called again!
(also commented this on your bug report)

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