Android – Fragment in ViewPager using FragmentPagerAdapter is blank the second time it is viewed

androidandroid-fragmentsandroid-nested-fragmentandroid-viewpager

I have a fragment interface with tabs along the bottom which open different fragments in the main view.

I have one particular fragment which is a list of items. If the user selects one of the items in this list, another fragment opens which contains a viewpager which scrolls horizontally between all of the items in the list in the previous fragment. This works great.

The viewpager uses a FragmentPagerAdapter to display the items.

The problem comes when the user selects an item in the list, views it, then hits the button on the tab bar to go back to the list, then selects another item. The second time an item is selected, a blank screen appears instead of the viewpager. I receive no errors in my LogCat when this happens.

Why is the viewpager only appearing the first time?

FragmentPagerAdapter:

public class ViewPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {
    Cursor mCursor;

    public ViewPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm, Cursor c) {
        super(fm);
        mCursor = c;
    }

    public void changeCursor(Cursor c) {
        mCursor = c;
        this.notifyDataSetChanged();
    }

    @Override
    public int getCount() {
        if (mCursor == null) return 0;
        else return mCursor.getCount();
    }

    @Override
    public Fragment getItem(int position) {
        mCursor.moveToPosition(position);
        return TeamCardFragment.newInstance(mCursor, position);
    }
}

PagerFragment:

@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    Bundle bundle = getArguments();
    mCursorPosition = bundle.getInt(TeamCardCommon.BUNDLE_KEY_CURSOR_POSITION);

    View mView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.team_card_master, container, false);
    mViewPager = (ViewPager)mView.findViewById(R.id.team_card_master_view_pager);

    mAdapter = new ViewPagerAdapter(getFragmentManager(), cursor);
    new setAdapterTask().execute();

    return mView;
}

private class setAdapterTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
        mViewPager.setAdapter(mAdapter);
        mViewPager.setCurrentItem(mCursorPosition);
    }
}

Best Answer

I had the same issue. Changing the parent class of my PageAdapter from android.support.v4.app.FragmentPagerAdapter to android.support.v4.app.FragmentStatePagerAdapter solve my ViewPager display issue on "second time"!

Related Solutions

Android – ViewPager PagerAdapter not updating the View

There are several ways to achieve this.

The first option is easier, but bit more inefficient.

Override getItemPosition in your PagerAdapter like this:

public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
    return POSITION_NONE;
}

This way, when you call notifyDataSetChanged(), the view pager will remove all views and reload them all. As so the reload effect is obtained.

The second option, suggested by Alvaro Luis Bustamante (previously alvarolb), is to setTag() method in instantiateItem() when instantiating a new view. Then instead of using notifyDataSetChanged(), you can use findViewWithTag() to find the view you want to update.

The second approach is very flexible and high performant. Kudos to alvarolb for the original research.

Android – ViewPager and fragments — what’s the right way to store fragment’s state

When the FragmentPagerAdapter adds a fragment to the FragmentManager, it uses a special tag based on the particular position that the fragment will be placed. FragmentPagerAdapter.getItem(int position) is only called when a fragment for that position does not exist. After rotating, Android will notice that it already created/saved a fragment for this particular position and so it simply tries to reconnect with it with FragmentManager.findFragmentByTag(), instead of creating a new one. All of this comes free when using the FragmentPagerAdapter and is why it is usual to have your fragment initialisation code inside the getItem(int) method.

Even if we were not using a FragmentPagerAdapter, it is not a good idea to create a new fragment every single time in Activity.onCreate(Bundle). As you have noticed, when a fragment is added to the FragmentManager, it will be recreated for you after rotating and there is no need to add it again. Doing so is a common cause of errors when working with fragments.

A usual approach when working with fragments is this:

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    ...

    CustomFragment fragment;
    if (savedInstanceState != null) {
        fragment = (CustomFragment) getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag("customtag");
    } else {
        fragment = new CustomFragment();
        getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction().add(R.id.container, fragment, "customtag").commit(); 
    }

    ...

}

When using a FragmentPagerAdapter, we relinquish fragment management to the adapter, and do not have to perform the above steps. By default, it will only preload one Fragment in front and behind the current position (although it does not destroy them unless you are using FragmentStatePagerAdapter). This is controlled by ViewPager.setOffscreenPageLimit(int). Because of this, directly calling methods on the fragments outside of the adapter is not guaranteed to be valid, because they may not even be alive.

To cut a long story short, your solution to use putFragment to be able to get a reference afterwards is not so crazy, and not so unlike the normal way to use fragments anyway (above). It is difficult to obtain a reference otherwise because the fragment is added by the adapter, and not you personally. Just make sure that the offscreenPageLimit is high enough to load your desired fragments at all times, since you rely on it being present. This bypasses lazy loading capabilities of the ViewPager, but seems to be what you desire for your application.

Another approach is to override FragmentPageAdapter.instantiateItem(View, int) and save a reference to the fragment returned from the super call before returning it (it has the logic to find the fragment, if already present).

For a fuller picture, have a look at some of the source of FragmentPagerAdapter (short) and ViewPager (long).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – ViewPager PagerAdapter not updating the View

Android – ViewPager and fragments — what’s the right way to store fragment’s state

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