Develop Reference

AsyncTask doInBackground returns too soon

I have an AsyncTask connecting to a websocket.
protected Void doInBackground() {
client.connect();
return null;
}
When it's finished attempting the connection, I want the following to happen (currently inside onPostExecute):
protected void onPostExecute() {
if (socketConnected) {
doOtherThings();
} else {
log("Failed to connect.");
}
I've also tossed in the following, as another probe of sorts (in the WebSocketClient implementation):
public void onOpen() {
log("Opened successfully!");
socketConnected = true;
}
The onPostExecute method prints the failure message , followed by the success message from onOpen. This suggests that doInBackground is returning too soon. Is there any common reason this might happen?

Yes, probably the method client.connect() creates a ASyncTask and this leaves your task to continue executation, ending the method and going to onPostExecute.
If thats the case, the API you are using does should have some methods to listening async messages.
The API should have some Listener or Callback that will be fired at your thread.
EDIT: I searched WebViewClient on internet and the method connect() does indeed creates a new Thread, you should look how to use the calls properly.

How to stop the thread on Android?

I have a function parseData which recieves Vector of urls and gives them to DataParser. DataParser gets data from urls and parses it. The problem is that user might request new urls to parse before previous parsingis finished. In that case previous data becomes irrelivant but thread continues to work. Since there might be a lot of urls in one request and parsing each of them takes time, after 5-6 sequential requests phone starts work very slowly.
Here is the code snippet.
public void parseData(final String key, final Vector<String> data)
{
this.key = key;
Thread thread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
DataParser dp = new DataParser(key);
dp.setData(data);
dp.startParse();
}
});
thread.start();
}
I think the solution might be to keep extra flag in DataParser. Since it requesting urls in cycle, I can check flag and break cycle, but it seems to me rude.
Are there other ways to solve this issue?

You can use interrupt() method:
thread.interrupt();
BTW, checking some kinds of flags isn't so rude and bad style. But don't forget to declare such flag as volatile.

You need to check periodically for a flag in worker thread. Set that flag if worker thread is to be stopped.

This kind of thing is done well in an Async Task instead of straight thread. There is a cancel method to them and an is canceled function that can tell you to stop.

You could constantly check on a boolean flag every time you perform a parsing operation, and stop parsing if this flag becomes true.
From another thread, you can establish the value of this flag to "cancel" the parsing.
This is the technique AsyncTasks use to cancel the work done in doInBackground().
class DataParser {
private boolean volatile mIsCancelled = false;
public void startParsingAsync() {
new Thread(new Runnable(
public void run() {
parse();
}
)).start();
}
private void parse() {
while(!isCancelled()) {
parseNextNode();
}
}
private synchronized void isCancelled() {
return mIsCancelled();
}
public synchronized void cancel() {
mIsCancelled = true;
}
private void parseNextNode() {
.....
}
From another thread, you can invoke the method cancel() once the data has become irrelevant.
Note the you have to synchronize the access to the flag, as it will be accessed from different threads.
This code is not tested, so it may not even compile...
That's the theory, but for practical uses, you should use an AsyncTask, which gives the cancelling for you.

Do something if AsyncTask is cancelled?

I'm using AsyncTask to populate SQLite database. I'm downloading data from a certain webpage and putting it in SQLite tables. The thing is, I want to either download 100% of the data or none. So in case the AsyncTask is for some reason interrupted, I want to delete all the data that has been downloaded so far.
This is how I tried to do it:
#Override
protected void onCancelled() {
super.onCancelled();
dbHandler.deleteFromDatabase(razred);
Log.i("TAG", "AsyncTask cancelled");
}
I thought that "onCancelled" will execute if AsyncTask is interrupted in any way but it doesn't. What could I do to erase data that was made with AsyncTask in case it is cancelled in any way? (ex. activity paused, activity destroyed, internet connection interrupted etc.)

You're on the right track, but in your doInBackground() you also need to specifically call isCancelled() to check if it's cancelled and then return from doInBackground(). Then your code will work properly.
Refer to the AsyncTask documentation for "Cancelling a task"
Here's the quote from the documentation for easy reference:
A task can be cancelled at any time by invoking cancel(boolean). Invoking this method will cause subsequent calls to isCancelled() to return true. After invoking this method, onCancelled(Object), instead of onPostExecute(Object) will be invoked after doInBackground(Object[]) returns. To ensure that a task is cancelled as quickly as possible, you should always check the return value of isCancelled() periodically from doInBackground(Object[]), if possible (inside a loop for instance.)
EDIT: Per request, some sample code:
private class MyAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Void,Void,Void> {
private SQLiteDatabase db;
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
// any kind of initialization or setup needed before the
// background thread kicks off. remember: this is still on
// on the main (UI) thread
// since youre doing DB I/O, Ill make believe Im initializing the DB here
db = DatabaseHelper.getInstance(MainActvity.this).getWritableDatabase();
}
/*
* The background thread to do your disk and network I/O. If you need
* to pass in any parameters, this is the first Void in the template
*/
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
// other stuff you need to do in the background. Since you want an
// all-or-nothing type thing, we will use a transaction to manually
// control the db
db.beginTransaction();
try {
// do network I/O to retrieve what you need and then write to DB.
...
... // if theres a loop in here somewhere when reading the data, check !isCancelled() as part of the condition or as one of the first statements and then break
...
db.setTransactionSuccessful(); // assuming everything works, need to set
// this successful here at the end of the try
} catch (InterruptedException ie) { // or some other exception
cancel(true); // heres where you can call cancel() if youve been interrupted
} catch (IOException ioe) { // if your network connection has problems
cancel(true);
} finally {
db.endTransaction();
// other cleanup, like closing the HTTP connection...
// no need to close the DB if you implement it properly
}
return null; // if there was some return value, that would go here
}
#Override
protected void onCancelled(Void result) {
// depending on how you implement doInBackground(), you may not even need this,
// unless you have a lot of other "state" you need to reset aside from the DB transaction
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
// any other items to do on main (UI) thread after doInBackground() finishes
// remember, this only gets called if cancel() is not called!
}
}
Hope that helps!

I know this is not exactly what you've asked for, but I have to say you are doing it all wrong by using the AsyncTask.
There are many cases where your async task will be terminated without you being able to do anything. For such critical tasks as this one, use a Service.
With a Service you can till the system to restart your service in case it is terminated prematurely. You then can continue what you started, or start all over again (deleting all previous downloads...etc).
With an AsyncTask, if the system decided to terminate your async task prematurely, you are not notified nor the AsyncTask is restarted. It just dies in complete silence.

I think in the onpostexecute you could handle anything you wanted to.
private class ParseDownload extends AsyncTask<Summary, Void, Boolean> {
#Override
protected Boolean doInBackground(Summary... urls) {
for (Summary url : urls) {
url.dosomething();
if (isCanceled();) { return false;}
}
return true;
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Boolean result) {
if (!result) {
// delete * from yourtable here...
// and mark the download incomplete etc.
}
}
}
Good Luck

Stange onPause / onResume behaviour

I am seeing some strange behaviour with onPause / onResume in my app and cannot work out what is happening.
I perform a database query (simple subclass of AsyncTask) in onResume and cancel it in onPause if it is still executing. I received a crash report that made me wonder if the task cancel was working or not so added an analytics event to record onPostExecute getting called after onPause had cancelled the task.
Over the last month I have seen 140 of these events for 4,100 page views.
#Override
protected void onResume() {
super.onResume();
mIsResumed = true;
if (mReverseCardsTask == null) {
mReverseCardsTask = new TcgCursorTask(this) {
#Override
protected Cursor doInBackground(Void... params) {
return mDb.reverseFetchCards();
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Cursor cursor) {
if (mIsResumed) {
onReverseCardsCursor(cursor);
} else {
EasyTracker.getTracker().sendEvent("error", "on-post-execute", "called after paused", 1L);
}
}
};
mReverseCardsTask.execute();
}
}
#Override
protected void onPause() {
super.onPause();
mIsResumed = false;
if (mReverseCardsTask != null) {
mReverseCardsTask.cancel(false);
mReverseCardsTask = null;
}
}
I have a feeling I am missing something very simple here, but can't see it.
I just noticed I am not clearing mReverseCardsTask in onPostExecute, but that should not matter.

Just calling cancel() doesn't do anything. You actually have to put checks in the process to determine if it is to be canceled and do the job of canceling it.
The OS doesn't know what you may need to do to clean things up (like closing files or open network connections) before stopping.

OK. I have worked it out. I am not sure which API version it was fixed in, but if you look at the code for Gingerbread there is a clear race condition in the cancel() handling. The GUI thread code which processes the MESSAGE_POST_RESULT message from the background calls onPostExecute() regardless of whether or not the task was cancelled.
It turns out that the fix is quite simple. All I need to do is add my own check of isCancelled() before executing my onPostExecute() logic.
The Gingerbread code receives MESSAGE_POST_RESULT and calls finish(). Then finish() calls onPostExecute().

make asynctask return results when time is exceeded

I have some asynctasks in my application that do network functions (download/upload files,http requests) in the background.While these actions are in progress I use ProgressDialog in order to display messages about the progress of the task. However some tasks may require more time to complete (for example downloading a file on a slow network) and this is something unwanted in the application.
How can I set a parameter to control the duration of each asynctask? I want the asynctask to complete at some point regardless of the completion of the job in the task. I have to make the asynctask call the onPostExecute method.
I read about this http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/AsyncTask.html#get%28long,%20java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit%29
This was not very helpful because the UI would freeze and there was no actual control of the duration of the asynctask
This is a part of my code
public void downloadFiles(String address) {
String mainUrl =address;
//// I overrride the onPostExecute to get
/// results and call another asynctask
new Downloader(this){ //<--asynctask
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result){
super.onPostExecute(result);
TestResults=result;
//another method called that creates another asynctask
uploadFiles(mainUrl);
}
}.execute(mainUrl);
}
I also tried to use a Handler like this
But it didn't work either.
Is there a way to make the asynctask return results (which means to make asynctask call onPostExecute method) after a period of time ?
Using a while loop in the doInBackground method of asnctask is not the solution. I guess I need a timer from the mainUI to make the asynctask return results.
PS I have my application using fragments, that is why I call new Downloader(this) to pass the gui from the fragment.
Just tried this:
public void downloadFiles(String address) {
String mainUrl =address;
final Downloader tempObject =new Downloader(this){
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result){
super.onPostExecute(result);
downloadResults=result;
}
};
try {
tempObject.execute(mainUrl).get(3000L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (TimeoutException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
This would make the UI freeze for 3 seconds and then the task would be evoked.... Which is not what I want.
Also tried out this:
Handler handler = new Handler();
handler.postDelayed(new Runnable()
{
#Override
public void run() {
if ( tempObject.getStatus() == Downloader.Status.RUNNING )
tempObject.cancel(true);
}
}, 5000 );
This would cause the message of onProgressUpdate of asynctask to stop, however the asynctask keeps running....
Any ideas ?

The methodology of the Handler function needs something additional to work. The solution to the problem lies here
AsyncTask may be canceled, however the doInbackground method is still running. Actually the task is set to value "cancel", but the doInbackgroung will still be running until it finishes. To solve this we must periodically check within a loop in doInbackground to see whether the task was set to cancel. Although this is not exactly what I wanted to do, this seems to be the only solution.
In doInBackground we have to check for the status of the task to see whether it was cancelled or not. So actually ,someone could just have the timer inside the doInbackground and make life easier without using the handler class.
I find it disappointing that one can not just terminate the execution of a synctask at will..... If anyone has a better idea, please let me know.