Android In-App Billing v3: "Can't perform operation: queryInventory"

Question

I have setup In-App Billing for the first time using the new v3 API. It is working correctly on my devices but I have received a lot of error reports from other users.

One of them is:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: IAB helper is not set up. Can't perform operation: queryInventory
    at my.package.util.iab.IabHelper.checkSetupDone(IabHelper.java:673)
    at my.package.util.iab.IabHelper.queryInventory(IabHelper.java:462)
    at my.package.util.iab.IabHelper$2.run(IabHelper.java:521)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)

And another one is:

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at my.package.activities.MainActivity$4.onIabSetupFinished(MainActivity.java:159)
    at my.package.util.iab.IabHelper$1.onServiceConnected(IabHelper.java:242)

My activity implementation follows Google's example code (all referenced classes are untouched from the example):

IabHelper mHelper;

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

    //...

    mHelper = new IabHelper(this, IAB_PUBLIC_KEY);
    mHelper.enableDebugLogging(true);

    mHelper.startSetup(new IabHelper.OnIabSetupFinishedListener() {
        public void onIabSetupFinished(IabResult result) {
            if (!result.isSuccess()) {
                // Oh noes, there was a problem.
                return;
            }

            // Hooray, IAB is fully set up. Now, let's get an inventory of
            // stuff we own.
            mHelper.queryInventoryAsync(mGotInventoryListener); //***(1)***
        }
    });
}

// Listener that's called when we finish querying the items we own
IabHelper.QueryInventoryFinishedListener mGotInventoryListener = new IabHelper.QueryInventoryFinishedListener() {
    public void onQueryInventoryFinished(IabResult result,
            Inventory inventory) {
        if (!result.isFailure()) {
            if (inventory.hasPurchase(SoundsGlobals.IAB_SKU_PREMIUM)){
                //we are premium, do things
            }
        }
        else{
            //oops
        }
    }
};

@Override
protected void onDestroy() {
    if (mHelper != null) {
        mHelper.dispose();
        mHelper = null;
    }
    super.onDestroy();
}

I assume that both errors originate from the line marked as ***(1)***

What is the cause of these errors? If I'm calling queryInventoryAsync only within onIabSetupFinished, how is it possible that mHelper is null, or that mHelper is not set up?

Does anyone know a solution to this?

Answer 1

As @Martin explained, there was a bug in the Google In-App Billing example which caused this.

However, after fixing it, I was still receiving some errors in internal calls (queryInventory inside the thread created in queryInventoryAsync in some rare cases reports that the helper is not setup). I have solved this by adding an additional catch in that case:

try {
    inv = queryInventory(querySkuDetails, moreSkus);
}
catch (IabException ex) {
    result = ex.getResult();
}
catch(IllegalStateException ex){ //ADDED THIS CATCH
    result = new IabResult(BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_ERROR, "Helper is not setup.");
}

I also got a crash on mHelper.dispose() which I fixed in a similar way:

try{
    if (mContext != null) mContext.unbindService(mServiceConn);
}
catch(IllegalArgumentException ex){ //ADDED THIS CATCH
    //IGNORE IT - somehow, the service was already unregistered
}

Of course, instead of ignoring these errors you can silently log them to ACRA, for example :)

Thanks for all your comments.