How to handle screen orientation change when progress dialog and background thread active?

Edit: Google engineers do not recommend this approach, as described by Dianne Hackborn (a.k.a. hackbod) in this StackOverflow post. Check out this blog post for more information.

You have to add this to the activity declaration in the manifest:

android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize"

so it looks like

<activity android:label="@string/app_name" 
        android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize|keyboardHidden" 
        android:name=".your.package">

The matter is that the system destroys the activity when a change in the configuration occurs. See ConfigurationChanges.

So putting that in the configuration file avoids the system to destroy your activity. Instead it invokes the onConfigurationChanged(Configuration) method.

When you switch orientations, Android will create a new View. You're probably getting crashes because your background thread is trying to change the state on the old one. (It may also be having trouble because your background thread isn't on the UI thread)

I'd suggest making that mHandler volatile and updating it when the orientation changes.

I came up with a rock-solid solution for these issues that conforms with the 'Android Way' of things. I have all my long-running operations using the IntentService pattern.

That is, my activities broadcast intents, the IntentService does the work, saves the data in the DB and then broadcasts sticky intents. The sticky part is important, such that even if the Activity was paused during during the time after the user initiated the work and misses the real time broadcast from the IntentService we can still respond and pick up the data from the calling Activity. ProgressDialogs can work with this pattern quite nicely with onSaveInstanceState().

Basically, you need to save a flag that you have a progress dialog running in the saved instance bundle. Do not save the progress dialog object because this will leak the entire Activity. To have a persistent handle to the progress dialog, I store it as a weak reference in the application object. On orientation change or anything else that causes the Activity to pause (phone call, user hits home etc.) and then resume, I dismiss the old dialog and recreate a new dialog in the newly created Activity.

For indefinite progress dialogs this is easy. For progress bar style, you have to put the last known progress in the bundle and whatever information you're using locally in the activity to keep track of the progress. On restoring the progress, you'll use this information to re-spawn the progress bar in the same state as before and then update based on the current state of things.

So to summarize, putting long-running tasks into an IntentService coupled with judicious use of onSaveInstanceState() allows you to efficiently keep track of dialogs and restore then across the Activity life-cycle events. Relevant bits of Activity code are below. You'll also need logic in your BroadcastReceiver to handle Sticky intents appropriately, but that is beyond the scope of this.

public void doSignIn(View view) {
    waiting=true;
    AppClass app=(AppClass) getApplication();
    String logingon=getString(R.string.signon);
    app.Dialog=new WeakReference<ProgressDialog>(ProgressDialog.show(AddAccount.this, "", logingon, true));
    ...
}

@Override
protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle saveState) {
    super.onSaveInstanceState(saveState);
    saveState.putBoolean("waiting",waiting);
}

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    if(savedInstanceState!=null) {
        restoreProgress(savedInstanceState);    
    }
    ...
}

private void restoreProgress(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    waiting=savedInstanceState.getBoolean("waiting");
    if (waiting) {
        AppClass app=(AppClass) getApplication();
        ProgressDialog refresher=(ProgressDialog) app.Dialog.get();
        refresher.dismiss();
        String logingon=getString(R.string.signon);
        app.Dialog=new WeakReference<ProgressDialog>(ProgressDialog.show(AddAccount.this, "", logingon, true));
    }
}

I met the same problem. My activity needs to parse some data from a URL and it's slow. So I create a thread to do so, then show a progress dialog. I let the thread post a message back to UI thread via Handler when it's finished. In Handler.handleMessage, I get the data object (ready now) from thread and populate it to UI. So it's very similar to your example.

After a lot of trial and error it looks like I found a solution. At least now I can rotate screen at any moment, before or after the thread is done. In all tests, the dialog is properly closed and all behaviors are as expected.

What I did is shown below. The goal is to fill my data model (mDataObject) and then populate it to UI. Should allow screen rotation at any moment without surprise.

class MyActivity {

    private MyDataObject mDataObject = null;
    private static MyThread mParserThread = null; // static, or make it singleton

    OnCreate() {
        ...
        Object retained = this.getLastNonConfigurationInstance();
        if(retained != null) {
            // data is already completely obtained before config change
            // by my previous self.
            // no need to create thread or show dialog at all
            mDataObject = (MyDataObject) retained;
            populateUI();
        } else if(mParserThread != null && mParserThread.isAlive()){
            // note: mParserThread is a static member or singleton object.
            // config changed during parsing in previous instance. swap handler
            // then wait for it to finish.
            mParserThread.setHandler(new MyHandler());
        } else {
            // no data and no thread. likely initial run
            // create thread, show dialog
            mParserThread = new MyThread(..., new MyHandler());
            mParserThread.start();
            showDialog(DIALOG_PROGRESS);
        }
    }

    // http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/02/faster-screen-orientation-change.html
    public Object onRetainNonConfigurationInstance() {
        // my future self can get this without re-downloading
        // if it's already ready.
        return mDataObject;
    }

    // use Activity.showDialog instead of ProgressDialog.show
    // so the dialog can be automatically managed across config change
    @Override
    protected Dialog onCreateDialog(int id) {
        // show progress dialog here
    }

    // inner class of MyActivity
    private class MyHandler extends Handler {
        public void handleMessage(msg) {
            mDataObject = mParserThread.getDataObject();
            populateUI();
            dismissDialog(DIALOG_PROGRESS);
        }
    }
}

class MyThread extends Thread {
    Handler mHandler;
    MyDataObject mDataObject;

    // constructor with handler param
    public MyHandler(..., Handler h) {
        ...
        mHandler = h;
    }

    public void setHandler(Handler h) { mHandler = h; } // for handler swapping after config change
    public MyDataObject getDataObject() { return mDataObject; } // return data object (completed) to caller

    public void run() {
        mDataObject = new MyDataObject();
        // do the lengthy task to fill mDataObject with data
        lengthyTask(mDataObject);
        // done. notify activity
        mHandler.sendEmptyMessage(0); // tell activity: i'm ready. come pick up the data.
    }
}

That's what works for me. I don't know if this is the "correct" method as designed by Android -- they claim this "destroy/recreate activity during screen rotation" actually makes things easier, so I guess it shouldn't be too tricky.

Let me know if you see a problem in my code. As said above I don't really know if there is any side effect.

Move the long task to a seperate class. Implement it as a subject-observer pattern. Whenever the activity is created register and while closing unregister with the task class. Task class can use AsyncTask.

I have done it like this:

    package com.palewar;
    import android.app.Activity;
    import android.app.ProgressDialog;
    import android.os.Bundle;
    import android.os.Handler;
    import android.os.Message;

    public class ThreadActivity extends Activity {


        static ProgressDialog dialog;
        private Thread downloadThread;
        final static Handler handler = new Handler() {

            @Override
            public void handleMessage(Message msg) {

                super.handleMessage(msg);

                dialog.dismiss();

            }

        };

        protected void onDestroy() {
    super.onDestroy();
            if (dialog != null && dialog.isShowing()) {
                dialog.dismiss();
                dialog = null;
            }

        }

        /** Called when the activity is first created. */
        @Override
        public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
            super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
            setContentView(R.layout.main);

            downloadThread = (Thread) getLastNonConfigurationInstance();
            if (downloadThread != null && downloadThread.isAlive()) {
                dialog = ProgressDialog.show(ThreadActivity.this, "",
                        "Signing in...", false);
            }

            dialog = ProgressDialog.show(ThreadActivity.this, "",
                    "Signing in ...", false);

            downloadThread = new MyThread();
            downloadThread.start();
            // processThread();
        }

        // Save the thread
        @Override
        public Object onRetainNonConfigurationInstance() {
            return downloadThread;
        }


        static public class MyThread extends Thread {
            @Override
            public void run() {

                try {
                    // Simulate a slow network
                    try {
                        new Thread().sleep(5000);
                    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                    handler.sendEmptyMessage(0);

                } finally {

                }
            }
        }

    }

You can also try and let me know it works for you or not

If you create a background Service that does all the heavy lifting (tcp requests/response, unmarshalling), the View and Activity can be destroyed and re-created without leaking window or losing data. This allows the Android recommended behavior, which is to destroy an Activity on each configuration change (eg. for each orientation change).

It is a bit more complex, but it is the best way for invoking server request, data pre/post-processing, etc.

You may even use your Service to queue each request to a server, so it makes it easy and efficient to handle those things.

The dev guide has a full chapter on Services.

I've tried EVERYTHING. Spent days experimenting. I didn't want to block the activity from rotating. My scenario was:

1. A progress dialog showing dynamic information to the user. E.g.: "Connecting to server...", "Downloading data...", etc.
2. A thread doing the heavy stuff and updating the dialog
3. Updating the UI with the results at the end.

The problem was, when rotating the screen, every solution on the book failed. Even with the AsyncTask class, which is the correct Android way of dealing with this situations. When rotating the screen, the current Context that the starting thread is working with, is gone, and that messes up with the dialog that is showing. The problem was always the Dialog, no matter how many tricks I added to the code (passing new contexts to running threads, retaining thread states through rotations, etc...). The code complexity at the end was always huge and there was always something that could go wrong.

The only solution that worked for me was the Activity/Dialog trick. It's simple and genius and it's all rotation proof:

1. Instead of creating a Dialog and ask to show it, create an Activity that has been set in the manifest with android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Dialog". So, it just looks like a dialog.

2. Replace showDialog(DIALOG_ID) with startActivityForResult(yourActivityDialog, yourCode);

3. Use onActivityResult in the calling Activity to get the results from the executing thread (even the errors) and update the UI.

4. On your 'ActivityDialog', use threads or AsyncTask to execute long tasks and onRetainNonConfigurationInstance to save "dialog" state when rotating the screen.

This is fast and works fine. I still use dialogs for other tasks and the AsyncTask for something that doesn't require a constant dialog on screen. But with this scenario, I always go for the Activity/Dialog pattern.

And, I didn't try it, but it's even possible to block that Activity/Dialog from rotating, when the thread is running, speeding things up, while allowing the calling Activity to rotate.

This is my solution when I faced it: ProgressDialog is not a Fragment child, so my custom class "ProgressDialogFragment" can extend DialogFragment instead in order to keep the dialog shown for configuration changes.

import androidx.annotation.NonNull;
import android.app.Dialog;
import android.app.ProgressDialog;
import android.os.Bundle; 
import androidx.fragment.app.DialogFragment;
import androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager;

 /**
 * Usage:
 * To display the dialog:
 *     >>> ProgressDialogFragment.showProgressDialogFragment(
 *              getSupportFragmentManager(), 
 *              "fragment_tag", 
 *              "my dialog title", 
 *              "my dialog message");
 *              
 * To hide the dialog
 *     >>> ProgressDialogFragment.hideProgressDialogFragment();
 */ 


public class ProgressDialogFragment extends DialogFragment {

    private static String sTitle, sMessage;
    private static ProgressDialogFragment sProgressDialogFragment;

    public ProgressDialogFragment() {
    }

    private ProgressDialogFragment(String title, String message) {
        sTitle = title;
        sMessage = message;
    }


    @NonNull
    @Override
    public Dialog onCreateDialog(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        return ProgressDialog.show(getActivity(), sTitle, sMessage);
    }

    public static void showProgressDialogFragment(FragmentManager fragmentManager, String fragmentTag, String title, String message) {
        if (sProgressDialogFragment == null) {
            sProgressDialogFragment = new ProgressDialogFragment(title, message);
            sProgressDialogFragment.show(fragmentManager, fragmentTag);

        } else { // case of config change (device rotation)
            sProgressDialogFragment = (ProgressDialogFragment) fragmentManager.findFragmentByTag(fragmentTag); // sProgressDialogFragment will try to survive its state on configuration as much as it can, but when calling .dismiss() it returns NPE, so we have to reset it on each config change
            sTitle = title;
            sMessage = message;
        }

    }

    public static void hideProgressDialogFragment() {
        if (sProgressDialogFragment != null) {
            sProgressDialogFragment.dismiss();
        }
    }
}

The challenge was to retain the dialog title & message while screen rotation as they reset to the default empty string, although the dialog still shown

There are 2 approaches to solve this:

First approach: Make the activity that utilizes the dialog to retain state during config change in manifest file:

android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize|keyboardHidden"

This approach is not preferred by Google.

Second approach: on the activity's onCreate() method, you need to retain your DialogFragment by rebuilding the ProgressDialogFragment again with the title & message as follows if the savedInstanceState is not null:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
 setContentView(R.layout.activity_deal);

 if (savedInstanceState != null) {
      ProgressDialogFragment saveProgressDialog = (ProgressDialogFragment) getSupportFragmentManager()
              .findFragmentByTag("fragment_tag");
      if (saveProgressDialog != null) {
          showProgressDialogFragment(getSupportFragmentManager(), "fragment_tag", "my dialog title", "my dialog message");
      }
  }
}

When you change orientations , Android kill that activity and created new activity . I suggest to use retrofit with Rx java . which handle crashes automatically .

Use these method when retrofit call.

.subscribeOn(Schedulers.io()) .observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())