Android 8.0 Oreo crash on focusing TextInputEditText

Question

After updating some of our devices to android 8.0 , upon focusing on a TextInputEditText field inside of a TextInputLayout, the app crashes with this Exception:

Fatal Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'void
android.view.View.getBoundsOnScreen(android.graphics.Rect)' on a null object reference
at android.app.assist.AssistStructure$WindowNode.(AssistStructure.java)
at android.app.assist.AssistStructure.(AssistStructure.java)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleRequestAssistContextExtras(ActivityThread.java:3035)
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1807)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:105)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:164)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6541)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java)
at com.android.internal.os.Zygote$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(Zygote.java:240)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:767)

When we go to android Settings -> System -> Languages & input -> Advanced -> Auto-fill service -> None , then focusing on the TextInputEditText / TextInputLayout no longer crashes.

How can we prevent the crash from happening without having to disable the new 8.0 Auto-fill service on the devices?

Answer 1

I ran into this too. It turns out the issue was caused by setting the hint text on the EditText nested inside the TextInputLayout.

I did some digging and found this nugget in the 26.0.0 Beta 2 release notes. Android Support Release Notes June 2017

TextInputLayout must set hints on onProvideAutofillStructure()

That led me to try setting the hint on the TextInputLayout instead of the nested EditText.

This resolved the crashing issue for me. Example:

<android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout
    android:id="@+id/textInputLayout"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:hint="Some Hint Text"
    android.support.design:hintAnimationEnabled="true"
    android.support.design:hintEnabled="true"
    android.support.design:layout_marginTop="16dp">

    <android.support.design.widget.TextInputEditText
        android:id="@+id/editText"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

</android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout>

I posted this as an answer here as I mixed up bookmarks. Sorry for posting the same answer twice.