Replacing fragments and orientation change

Question

I'm developing an Android application targeting 2.x and 3.0 devices and thus I'm using the compatibilty API. I'm testing on Android 2.0.

I'm trying to replace a displayed fragment with another one (search form with search results) and I'm experiencing a crash on orientation change when the second (results) fragment is displayed.

Basically, I have an activity, that includes a fragment defined in layout xml as

    <fragment class="org.prevoz.android.search.SearchFormFragment"
              android:id = "@+id/search_form_fragment"
              android:layout_width = "fill_parent"
              android:layout_height = "fill_parent" />

The first fragment (SearchFormFragment) is displayed as a default. When user taps a "search" button, I replace the SearchFormFragment with SearchResultsFragment, which runs an AsyncTask (that's why I want to retain it) with

    // Show the search results fragment
SearchResultsFragment newSearch = new SearchResultsFragment(from, to, when);
newSearch.setRetainInstance(true);

FragmentTransaction transaction = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
transaction.setCustomAnimations(android.R.anim.fade_in, android.R.anim.fade_out);
transaction.replace(R.id.search_form_fragment, newSearch);      
transaction.addToBackStack(null);
transaction.commit();

However, when the SearchFormFragment is displayed and orientation is changed, my application crashes with

ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{org.prevoz.android/org.prevoz.android.search.MainActivity}: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #13: Error inflating class fragment
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2663)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2679)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleRelaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3815)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2400(ActivityThread.java:125)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2037)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:868)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:626)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334): Caused by: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #13: Error inflating class fragment
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:582)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:618)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:407)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:320)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:276)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.setContentView(PhoneWindow.java:198)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.Activity.setContentView(Activity.java:1647)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at org.prevoz.android.search.MainActivity.onCreate(MainActivity.java:40)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2627)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     ... 12 more
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334): Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Fragment org.prevoz.android.search.SearchFormFragment did not create a view.
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity.onCreateView(FragmentActivity.java:281)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:558)
ERROR/AndroidRuntime(334):     ... 21 more
WARN/ActivityManager(59):   Force finishing activity org.prevoz.android/.search.MainActivity

The relevant onCreateView code from SearchFormFragment does get called and I return a valid view:

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

The crash only happens if the SearchResultsFragment is shown, the change works fine if the default SearchFormFragment is displayed.

So how do I retain the second fragment state through the orientation change? The documentation on API and state changes is really lacking.

Answer 1

Don't create the SearchFormFragment in XML. Instead have an empty FrameLayout which you populate in Activity.onCreate() without adding it to the back stack. This way the Activity will keep the current Fragment instead of trying to add the one specified in XML.

Also, using AsyncLoader may be a better approach, see http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=14944