How to check internet access on Android? InetAddress never times out

Question

I got a AsyncTask that is supposed to check the network access to a host name. But the doInBackground() is never timed out. Anyone have a clue?

public class HostAvailabilityTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Boolean> {

    private Main main;

    public HostAvailabilityTask(Main main) {
        this.main = main;
    }

    protected Boolean doInBackground(String... params) {
        Main.Log("doInBackground() isHostAvailable():"+params[0]);

        try {
            return InetAddress.getByName(params[0]).isReachable(30); 
        } catch (UnknownHostException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return false;       
    }

    protected void onPostExecute(Boolean... result) {
        Main.Log("onPostExecute()");

        if(result[0] == false) {
            main.setContentView(R.layout.splash);
            return;
        }

        main.continueAfterHostCheck();
    }   
}

Answer 1

If the device is in airplane mode (or presumably in other situations where there's no available network), cm.getActiveNetworkInfo() will be null, so you need to add a null check.

Modified (Eddie's solution) below:

public boolean isOnline() {
    ConnectivityManager cm =
        (ConnectivityManager) getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
    NetworkInfo netInfo = cm.getActiveNetworkInfo();
    return netInfo != null && netInfo.isConnectedOrConnecting();
}

Also add the following permission to the AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

One other small point, if you absolutely need a network connection at the given point in time, then it might be better to use netInfo.isConnected() rather than netInfo.isConnectedOrConnecting. I guess this is up to the individual use-case however.