Can't create handler inside thread which has not called Looper.prepare()

lacas picture lacas · Feb 15, 2011 · Viewed 228.1k times · Source

I have an Activity, and in that I have a class.

text=new Dynamictext(...);
text.setText("txt");

in my DynamicText java I have this code:

public void setText(String text) {
    this.text=text;
    new asyncCreateText().execute();
    //this.createText(text);
}

//private Handler handler = new Handler();

private class asyncCreateText extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> 
{
    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... unused) {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(Void unused) {

    }
}

I get:

ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5176): Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Can't create handler inside thread that has not called Looper.prepare()

How can I handle this error?

ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370): java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at com.l.start.DynamicText.setText(DynamicText.java:125)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at com.l.start.OpenGLRenderer.initfonts(OpenGLRenderer.java:168)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at com.l.start.OpenGLRenderer.init(OpenGLRenderer.java:119)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at com.l.start.OpenGLRenderer.onSurfaceChanged(OpenGLRenderer.java:90)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at android.opengl.GLSurfaceView$GLThread.guardedRun(GLSurfaceView.java:1120)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at android.opengl.GLSurfaceView$GLThread.run(GLSurfaceView.java:975)

ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370): Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: 
    Can't create handler inside thread that has not called Looper.prepare()
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at android.os.Handler.<init>(Handler.java:121)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at android.os.AsyncTask$InternalHandler.<init>(AsyncTask.java:421)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at android.os.AsyncTask$InternalHandler.<init>(AsyncTask.java:421)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     at android.os.AsyncTask.<clinit>(AsyncTask.java:152)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(5370):     ... 6 more

Answer

Reuben Scratton picture Reuben Scratton · Feb 15, 2011

The error is self-explanatory... doInBackground() runs on a background thread which, since it is not intended to loop, is not connected to a Looper.

You most likely don't want to directly instantiate a Handler at all... whatever data your doInBackground() implementation returns will be passed to onPostExecute() which runs on the UI thread.

   mActivity = ThisActivity.this; 

    mActivity.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
     public void run() {
     new asyncCreateText().execute();
     }
   });

ADDED FOLLOWING THE STACKTRACE APPEARING IN QUESTION:

Looks like you're trying to start an AsyncTask from a GL rendering thread... don't do that cos they won't ever Looper.loop() either. AsyncTasks are really designed to be run from the UI thread only.

The least disruptive fix would probably be to call Activity.runOnUiThread() with a Runnable that kicks off your AsyncTask.