Getting the error "Java.lang.IllegalStateException Activity has been destroyed" when using tabs with ViewPager

Question

I have an application that consists of using ActionBarSherlock in tab mode.I have 5 tabs and the content of each tab is handled using fragments. For tab2 though, I have a fragment the xml file of which holds a ViewPager element which in turn has some fragment pages. When I initially start the application the application, I am able to switch between tabs no problem but when I press on tab2 for the second time I get the error mentioned above. The main activity is as follows:

public class MainActivity extends SherlockFragmentActivity
{
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        ActionBar actionBar = getSupportActionBar();

        ActionBar.Tab tab1 = actionBar.newTab().setText("Tab1");
        ActionBar.Tab tab3 = actionBar.newTab().setText("Tab3");
        ActionBar.Tab tab2 = actionBar.newTab().setText("Tab2");
        ActionBar.Tab tab4 = actionBar.newTab().setText("Tab4");
        ActionBar.Tab tab5 = actionBar.newTab().setText("Tab5");

        Fragment fragment1 = new Tab1();
        Fragment fragment3 = new Tab3();
        Fragment fragment2 = new Tab2();
        Fragment fragment5 = new Tab5();
        Fragment fragment4 = new Tab4();

        tab1.setTabListener(new MyTabListener(fragment1));
        tab3.setTabListener(new MyTabListener(fragment3));
        tab2.setTabListener(new MyTabListener(fragment2));
        tab5.setTabListener(new MyTabListener(fragment5));
        tab4.setTabListener(new MyTabListener(fragment4));

        actionBar.addTab(tab1);
        actionBar.addTab(tab2);
        actionBar.addTab(tab3);
        actionBar.addTab(tab4);
        actionBar.addTab(tab5); 

        actionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);
    }

    class MyTabListener implements ActionBar.TabListener
    {
        Fragment fragment;

        public MyTabListener(Fragment fragment)
        {
            this.fragment = fragment;
        }

        @Override
        public void onTabSelected(com.actionbarsherlock.app.ActionBar.Tab tab,FragmentTransaction ft) 
        {
            ft.replace(R.id.fragment_container,fragment);
        }

        @Override
        public void onTabUnselected(com.actionbarsherlock.app.ActionBar.Tab tab,FragmentTransaction ft) 
        {

        }

        @Override
        public void onTabReselected(com.actionbarsherlock.app.ActionBar.Tab tab,FragmentTransaction ft) 
        {

        }
    }
}

The fragment class without the ViewPager is as follows:

public class Tab1 extends Fragment 
{
    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        return inflater.inflate(R.layout.activity_tab1, container, false);
    }
}

The fragment class with the ViewPager is as follows:

public class Tab2 extends Fragment 
{
    ViewPager mViewPager;
    private MyFragmentPagerAdapter mMyFragmentPagerAdapter;  
    private static int NUMBER_OF_PAGES = 5;

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        View view =  inflater.inflate(R.layout.activity_tab2, container, false); 
        return view;
    }

    @Override
    public void onViewCreated(View view,Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState);
        mViewPager = (ViewPager) view.findViewById(R.id.viewpager);
        mMyFragmentPagerAdapter = new MyFragmentPagerAdapter(getChildFragmentManager());  
        mViewPager.setAdapter(mMyFragmentPagerAdapter);  
    }

    private static class MyFragmentPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter 
    {    
        public MyFragmentPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) 
        {  
             super(fm);  
        }  

        @Override  
        public Fragment getItem(int index) 
        {  
             return PageFragment.newInstance("My Message " + index);
        }  

        @Override  
        public int getCount() 
        {  
             return NUMBER_OF_PAGES;  
        }  
   }
}

From what I've read in different places (and please correct me if I'm wrong), this happens because the fragment manager on the second pass tries to reuse the fragments from the activity which doesn't exist anymore thus giving the error.But I'm not sure why this happens over here since I'm not using fragment activity. According to logcat the error is in the Tab2 class, onViewCreated method on the line that says mViewPager.setAdapter(mMyFragmentPagerAdapter). Any help is greatly appreciated...Thanks.

03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474): java.lang.IllegalStateException: Activity has been destroyed
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.enqueueAction(FragmentManager.java:1342)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.BackStackRecord.commitInternal(BackStackRecord.java:595)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.BackStackRecord.commitAllowingStateLoss(BackStackRecord.java:578)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentPagerAdapter.finishUpdate(FragmentPagerAdapter.java:139)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.view.ViewPager.populate(ViewPager.java:1011)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.view.ViewPager.populate(ViewPager.java:880)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.view.ViewPager.setAdapter(ViewPager.java:433)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at com.example.tabs.Tab2.onViewCreated(Tab2.java:31)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:925)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1088)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.BackStackRecord.run(BackStackRecord.java:682)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.execPendingActions(FragmentManager.java:1444)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl$1.run(FragmentManager.java:429)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:587)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:92)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:3687)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:507)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:842)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:600)
03-04 12:01:05.468: E/AndroidRuntime(2474):     at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

This seems to be a bug in the newly added support for nested fragments. Basically, the child FragmentManager ends up with a broken internal state when it is detached from the activity. A short-term workaround that fixed it for me is to add the following to onDetach() of every Fragment which you call getChildFragmentManager() on:

@Override
public void onDetach() {
    super.onDetach();

    try {
        Field childFragmentManager = Fragment.class.getDeclaredField("mChildFragmentManager");
        childFragmentManager.setAccessible(true);
        childFragmentManager.set(this, null);

    } catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
}