Android – How to programmatically “restart” an Android app

androidandroid-activity

Firstly, I know that one should not really kill/restart an application on Android. In my use case, I want to factory-reset my application in a specific case where a server sends a piece of specific information to the client.

The user can only be logged in on the server with ONE instance of the application (i.e. multiple devices are not allowed). If another instance gets that "logged-in"-lock then all other instances of that user have to delete their data (factory-reset), to maintain consistency.

It is possible to forcibly get the lock because the user might delete the app and reinstall it which would result in a different instance-id and the user would not be able to free the lock anymore. Therefore it is possible to forcibly get the lock.

Because of that force-possibility, we need to always check in a concrete instance that it has the lock. That is done on (almost) each request to the server. The server might send a "wrong-lock-id". If that is detected, the client application must delete everything.

That was the use-case.

I have an Activity A that starts the Login Activity L or the app's main Activity B depending on a sharedPrefs value. After starting L or B it closes itself so that only L or B is running. So in the case that the user is logged in already B is running now.

B starts C. C calls startService for the IntentService D. That results in this stack:

(A) > B > C > D

From the onHandleIntent method of D, an event is sent to a ResultReceiver R.

R now handles that event by providing the user a dialog where he can choose to factory-reset the application (delete the database, sharedPrefs, etc.)

After the factory-reset I want to restart the application (to close all activities) and only start A again which then launches the login Activity L and finishes itself:

(A) > L

The Dialog's onClick-method looks like this:

@Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {

    // Will call onCancelListener
    MyApplication.factoryReset(); // (Deletes the database, clears sharedPrefs, etc.)
    Intent i = new Intent(MyApp.getContext(), A.class);
    i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
    i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
    MyApp.getContext().startActivity(i);
}

And that's the MyApp class:

public class MyApp extends Application {
    private static Context context;

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        context = getApplicationContext();
    }

    public static Context getContext() {
        return context;
    }

    public static void factoryReset() {
        // ...
    }
}

The problem is if I use the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK the Activities B and C are still running. If I hit the back button on the login Activity I see C, but I want to go back to the home screen.

If I do not set the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK I get the error:

07-07 12:27:12.272: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(9512): android.util.AndroidRuntimeException: Calling startActivity() from outside of an Activity  context requires the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag. Is this really what you want?

I cannot use the Activities' Context, because the ServiceIntent D might also be called from a background task which is started by the AlarmManager.

So how could I solve this to the activity stack becoming (A) > L?

Best Answer

You can use PendingIntent to setup launching your start activity in the future and then close your application

Intent mStartActivity = new Intent(context, StartActivity.class);
int mPendingIntentId = 123456;
PendingIntent mPendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, mPendingIntentId,    mStartActivity, PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);
AlarmManager mgr = (AlarmManager)context.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
mgr.set(AlarmManager.RTC, System.currentTimeMillis() + 100, mPendingIntent);
System.exit(0);

Related Solutions

Android – How to save an activity state using the save instance state

You need to override onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) and write the application state values you want to change to the Bundle parameter like this:

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
  // Save UI state changes to the savedInstanceState.
  // This bundle will be passed to onCreate if the process is
  // killed and restarted.
  savedInstanceState.putBoolean("MyBoolean", true);
  savedInstanceState.putDouble("myDouble", 1.9);
  savedInstanceState.putInt("MyInt", 1);
  savedInstanceState.putString("MyString", "Welcome back to Android");
  // etc.
}

The Bundle is essentially a way of storing a NVP ("Name-Value Pair") map, and it will get passed in to onCreate() and also onRestoreInstanceState() where you would then extract the values from activity like this:

@Override
public void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
  // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState.
  // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate.
  boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean");
  double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble");
  int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt");
  String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString");
}

Or from a fragment.

@Override
public void onViewStateRestored(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onViewStateRestored(savedInstanceState);
    // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState.
    // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate.
    boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean");
    double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble");
    int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt");
    String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString");
}

You would usually use this technique to store instance values for your application (selections, unsaved text, etc.).

Android – Activity restart on rotation Android

Using the Application Class

Depending on what you're doing in your initialization you could consider creating a new class that extends Application and moving your initialization code into an overridden onCreate method within that class.

public class MyApplicationClass extends Application {
  @Override
  public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    // TODO Put your application initialization code here.
  }
}

The onCreate in the application class is only called when the entire application is created, so the Activity restarts on orientation or keyboard visibility changes won't trigger it.

It's good practice to expose the instance of this class as a singleton and exposing the application variables you're initializing using getters and setters.

NOTE: You'll need to specify the name of your new Application class in the manifest for it to be registered and used:

<application
    android:name="com.you.yourapp.MyApplicationClass"

Reacting to Configuration Changes [UPDATE: this is deprecated since API 13; see the recommended alternative]

As a further alternative, you can have your application listen for events that would cause a restart – like orientation and keyboard visibility changes – and handle them within your Activity.

Start by adding the android:configChanges node to your Activity's manifest node

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

or for Android 3.2 (API level 13) and newer:

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

Then within the Activity override the onConfigurationChanged method and call setContentView to force the GUI layout to be re-done in the new orientation.

@Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
  super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
  setContentView(R.layout.myLayout);
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to save an activity state using the save instance state

Android – Activity restart on rotation Android

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