[android] support FragmentPagerAdapter holds reference to old fragments

LATEST INFO:

i have narrowed my problem down to being a problem with the fragmentManager retaining instances of old fragments and my viewpager being out of sync with my FragmentManager. See this issue... http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=19211#makechanges . I still have no clue how to solve this. Any suggestions...

I have tried to debug this for a long time and any help would be greatly appreciated. I am using a FragmentPagerAdapter which accepts a list of fragments like so:

List<Fragment> fragments = new Vector<Fragment>();
fragments.add(Fragment.instantiate(this, Fragment1.class.getName())); 
...
new PagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager(), fragments);

The implementation is standard. I am using ActionBarSherlock and v4 computability library for Fragments.

My problem is that after leaving the app and opening several other applications and coming back, the fragments lose their reference back to the FragmentActivity (ie. getActivity() == null). I can not figure out why this is happening. I tried to manually set setRetainInstance(true); but this does not help. I figured that this happens when my FragmentActivity gets destroyed, however this still happens if I open the app before I get the log message. Are there any ideas?

@Override
protected void onDestroy(){
    Log.w(TAG, "DESTROYDESTROYDESTROYDESTROYDESTROYDESTROYDESTROY");
    super.onDestroy();
}

The adapter:

public class PagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {
    private List<Fragment> fragments;

    public PagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm, List<Fragment> fragments) {
        super(fm);

        this.fragments = fragments;

    }

    @Override
    public Fragment getItem(int position) {

        return this.fragments.get(position);

    }

    @Override
    public int getCount() {

        return this.fragments.size();

    }

}

One of my Fragments stripped but i commetned everyhting out thats stripped and still doesnt work...

public class MyFragment extends Fragment implements MyFragmentInterface, OnScrollListener {
...

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState){
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    handler = new Handler();    
    setHasOptionsMenu(true);
}

@Override
public void onAttach(Activity activity) {
    super.onAttach(activity);
    Log.w(TAG,"ATTACHATTACHATTACHATTACHATTACH");
    context = activity;
    if(context== null){
        Log.e("IS NULL", "NULLNULLNULLNULLNULLNULLNULLNULLNULLNULLNULL");
    }else{
        Log.d("IS NOT NULL", "NOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOTNOT");
    }

}

@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedState) {
    super.onActivityCreated(savedState);
}

@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    View v = inflater.inflate(R.layout.my_fragment,container, false);

    return v;
}


@Override
public void onResume(){
    super.onResume();
}

private void callService(){
    // do not call another service is already running
    if(startLoad || !canSet) return;
    // set flag
    startLoad = true;
    canSet = false;
    // show the bottom spinner
    addFooter();
    Intent intent = new Intent(context, MyService.class);
    intent.putExtra(MyService.STATUS_RECEIVER, resultReceiver);
    context.startService(intent);
}

private ResultReceiver resultReceiver = new ResultReceiver(null) {
    @Override
    protected void onReceiveResult(int resultCode, final Bundle resultData) {
        boolean isSet = false;
        if(resultData!=null)
        if(resultData.containsKey(MyService.STATUS_FINISHED_GET)){
            if(resultData.getBoolean(MyService.STATUS_FINISHED_GET)){
                removeFooter();
                startLoad = false;
                isSet = true;
            }
        }

        switch(resultCode){
        case MyService.STATUS_FINISHED: 
            stopSpinning();
            break;
        case SyncService.STATUS_RUNNING:
            break;
        case SyncService.STATUS_ERROR:
            break;
        }
    }
};

public void onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu, MenuInflater inflater) {
    menu.clear();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.activity, menu);
}

@Override
public void onPause(){
    super.onPause();
}

public void onScroll(AbsListView arg0, int firstVisible, int visibleCount, int totalCount) {
    boolean loadMore = /* maybe add a padding */
        firstVisible + visibleCount >= totalCount;

    boolean away = firstVisible+ visibleCount <= totalCount - visibleCount;

    if(away){
        // startLoad can now be set again
        canSet = true;
    }

    if(loadMore) 

}

public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView arg0, int state) {
    switch(state){
    case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_FLING: 
        adapter.setLoad(false); 
        lastState = OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_FLING;
        break;
    case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_IDLE: 
        adapter.setLoad(true);
        if(lastState == SCROLL_STATE_FLING){
            // load the images on screen
        }

        lastState = OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_IDLE;
        break;
    case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_TOUCH_SCROLL:
        adapter.setLoad(true);
        if(lastState == SCROLL_STATE_FLING){
            // load the images on screen
        }

        lastState = OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_TOUCH_SCROLL;
        break;
    }
}

@Override
public void onDetach(){
    super.onDetach();
    if(this.adapter!=null)
        this.adapter.clearContext();

    Log.w(TAG, "DETACHEDDETACHEDDETACHEDDETACHEDDETACHEDDETACHED");
}

public void update(final int id, String name) {
    if(name!=null){
        getActivity().getSupportActionBar().setTitle(name);
    }

}

}

The update method is called when a user interacts with a different fragment and the getActivity is returning null. Here is the method the other fragment is calling...

((MyFragment) pagerAdapter.getItem(1)).update(id, name);

I believe that when the app is destroyed then created again instead of just starting the app up to the default fragment the app starts up and then viewpager navigates to the last known page. This seems strange, shouldn't the app just load to the default fragment?

Since the FragmentManager will take care of restoring your Fragments for you as soon as the onResume() method is called I have the fragment call out to the activity and add itself to a list. In my instance I am storing all of this in my PagerAdapter implementation. Each fragment knows it's position because it is added to the fragment arguments on creation. Now whenever I need to manipulate a fragment at a specific index all I have to do is use the list from my adapter.

The following is an example of an Adapter for a custom ViewPager that will grow the fragment as it moves into focus, and scale it down as it moves out of focus. Besides the Adapter and Fragment classes I have here all you need is for the parent activity to be able to reference the adapter variable and you are set.

Adapter

public class GrowPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter implements OnPageChangeListener, OnScrollChangedListener {

public final String TAG = this.getClass().getSimpleName();

private final int COUNT = 4;

public static final float BASE_SIZE = 0.8f;
public static final float BASE_ALPHA = 0.8f;

private int mCurrentPage = 0;
private boolean mScrollingLeft;

private List<SummaryTabletFragment> mFragments;

public int getCurrentPage() {
    return mCurrentPage;
}

public void addFragment(SummaryTabletFragment fragment) {
    mFragments.add(fragment.getPosition(), fragment);
}

public GrowPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
    super(fm);

    mFragments = new ArrayList<SummaryTabletFragment>();
}

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

@Override
public Fragment getItem(int position) {
    return SummaryTabletFragment.newInstance(position);
}

@Override
public void onPageScrollStateChanged(int state) {}

@Override
public void onPageScrolled(int position, float positionOffset, int positionOffsetPixels) {

    adjustSize(position, positionOffset);
}

@Override
public void onPageSelected(int position) {
    mCurrentPage = position;
}

/**
 * Used to adjust the size of each view in the viewpager as the user
 * scrolls.  This provides the effect of children scaling down as they
 * are moved out and back to full size as they come into focus.
 * 
 * @param position
 * @param percent
 */
private void adjustSize(int position, float percent) {

    position += (mScrollingLeft ? 1 : 0);
    int secondary = position + (mScrollingLeft ? -1 : 1);
    int tertiary = position + (mScrollingLeft ? 1 : -1);

    float scaleUp = mScrollingLeft ? percent : 1.0f - percent;
    float scaleDown = mScrollingLeft ? 1.0f - percent : percent;

    float percentOut = scaleUp > BASE_ALPHA ? BASE_ALPHA : scaleUp;
    float percentIn = scaleDown > BASE_ALPHA ? BASE_ALPHA : scaleDown;

    if (scaleUp < BASE_SIZE)
        scaleUp = BASE_SIZE;

    if (scaleDown < BASE_SIZE)
        scaleDown = BASE_SIZE;

    // Adjust the fragments that are, or will be, on screen
    SummaryTabletFragment current = (position < mFragments.size()) ? mFragments.get(position) : null;
    SummaryTabletFragment next = (secondary < mFragments.size() && secondary > -1) ? mFragments.get(secondary) : null;
    SummaryTabletFragment afterNext = (tertiary < mFragments.size() && tertiary > -1) ? mFragments.get(tertiary) : null;

    if (current != null && next != null) {

        // Apply the adjustments to each fragment
        current.transitionFragment(percentIn, scaleUp);
        next.transitionFragment(percentOut, scaleDown);

        if (afterNext != null) {
            afterNext.transitionFragment(BASE_ALPHA, BASE_SIZE);
        }
    }
}

@Override
public void onScrollChanged(int l, int t, int oldl, int oldt) {

    // Keep track of which direction we are scrolling
    mScrollingLeft = (oldl - l) < 0;
}
}

Fragment

public class SummaryTabletFragment extends BaseTabletFragment {

public final String TAG = this.getClass().getSimpleName();

private final float SCALE_SIZE = 0.8f;

private RelativeLayout mBackground, mCover;
private TextView mTitle;
private VerticalTextView mLeft, mRight;

private String mTitleText;
private Integer mColor;

private boolean mInit = false;
private Float mScale, mPercent;

private GrowPagerAdapter mAdapter;
private int mCurrentPosition = 0;

public String getTitleText() {
    return mTitleText;
}

public void setTitleText(String titleText) {
    this.mTitleText = titleText;
}

public static SummaryTabletFragment newInstance(int position) {

    SummaryTabletFragment fragment = new SummaryTabletFragment();
    fragment.setRetainInstance(true);

    Bundle args = new Bundle();
    args.putInt("position", position);
    fragment.setArguments(args);

    return fragment;
}

@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreateView(inflater, container, savedInstanceState);

    mRoot = inflater.inflate(R.layout.tablet_dummy_view, null);

    setupViews();
    configureView();

    return mRoot;
}

@Override
public void onViewStateRestored(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onViewStateRestored(savedInstanceState);

    if (savedInstanceState != null) {
        mColor = savedInstanceState.getInt("color", Color.BLACK);
    }

    configureView();
}

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState)  {

    outState.putInt("color", mColor);

    super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
}

@Override
public int getPosition() {
    return getArguments().getInt("position", -1);
}

@Override
public void setPosition(int position) {
    getArguments().putInt("position", position);
}

public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();

    mAdapter = mActivity.getPagerAdapter();
    mAdapter.addFragment(this);
    mCurrentPosition = mAdapter.getCurrentPage();

    if ((getPosition() == (mCurrentPosition + 1) || getPosition() == (mCurrentPosition - 1)) && !mInit) {
        mInit = true;
        transitionFragment(GrowPagerAdapter.BASE_ALPHA, GrowPagerAdapter.BASE_SIZE);
        return;
    }

    if (getPosition() == mCurrentPosition && !mInit) {
        mInit = true;
        transitionFragment(0.00f, 1.0f);
    }
}

private void setupViews() {

    mCover = (RelativeLayout) mRoot.findViewById(R.id.cover);
    mLeft = (VerticalTextView) mRoot.findViewById(R.id.title_left);
    mRight = (VerticalTextView) mRoot.findViewById(R.id.title_right);
    mBackground = (RelativeLayout) mRoot.findViewById(R.id.root);
    mTitle = (TextView) mRoot.findViewById(R.id.title);
}

private void configureView() {

    Fonts.applyPrimaryBoldFont(mLeft, 15);
    Fonts.applyPrimaryBoldFont(mRight, 15);

    float[] size = UiUtils.getScreenMeasurements(mActivity);
    int width = (int) (size[0] * SCALE_SIZE);
    int height = (int) (size[1] * SCALE_SIZE);

    RelativeLayout.LayoutParams params = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(width, height);
    mBackground.setLayoutParams(params);

    if (mScale != null)
        transitionFragment(mPercent, mScale);

    setRandomBackground();

    setTitleText("Fragment " + getPosition());

    mTitle.setText(getTitleText().toUpperCase());
    mLeft.setText(getTitleText().toUpperCase());
    mRight.setText(getTitleText().toUpperCase());

    mLeft.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {

            mActivity.showNextPage();
        }
    });

    mRight.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {

            mActivity.showPrevPage();
        }
    });
}

private void setRandomBackground() {

    if (mColor == null) {
        Random r = new Random();
        mColor = Color.rgb(r.nextInt(255), r.nextInt(255), r.nextInt(255));
    }

    mBackground.setBackgroundColor(mColor);
}

public void transitionFragment(float percent, float scale) {

    this.mScale = scale;
    this.mPercent = percent;

    if (getView() != null && mCover != null) {

        getView().setScaleX(scale);
        getView().setScaleY(scale);

        mCover.setAlpha(percent);
        mCover.setVisibility((percent <= 0.05f) ? View.GONE : View.VISIBLE);
    }
}

@Override
public String getFragmentTitle() {
    return null;
}
}

I found simple solution which worked for me.

Make your fragment adapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter instead of FragmentPagerAdapter and override method onSave to return null

@Override
public Parcelable saveState()
{
    return null;
}

This prevent android from recreating fragment

One day later I found another and better solution.

Call setRetainInstance(true) for all your fragments and save references to them somewhere. I did that in static variable in my activity, because it's declared as singleTask and fragments can stay the same all the time.

This way android not recreate fragments but use same instances.

My solution: I set almost every View as static. Now my app interacts perfect. Being able to call the static methods from everywhere is maybe not a good style, but why to play around with code that doesn't work? I read a lot of questions and their answers here on SO and no solution brought success (for me).

I know it can leak the memory, and waste heap, and my code will not be fit on other projects, but I don't feel scared about this - I tested the app on different devices and conditions, no problems at all, the Android Platform seems to be able handle this. The UI gets refreshed every second and even on a S2 ICS (4.0.3) device the app is able to handle thousands of geo-markers.

Do not try to interact between fragments in ViewPager. You cannot guarantee that other fragment attached or even exists. Istead of changing actionbar title from fragment, you can do it from your activity. Use standart interface pattern for this:

public interface UpdateCallback
{
    void update(String name);
}

public class MyActivity extends FragmentActivity implements UpdateCallback
{
    @Override
    public void update(String name)
    {
        getSupportActionBar().setTitle(name);
    }

}

public class MyFragment extends Fragment
{
    private UpdateCallback callback;

    @Override
    public void onAttach(SupportActivity activity)
    {
        super.onAttach(activity);
        callback = (UpdateCallback) activity;
    }

    @Override
    public void onDetach()
    {
        super.onDetach();
        callback = null;
    }

    public void updateActionbar(String name)
    {
        if(callback != null)
            callback.update(name);
    }
}

I solved the problem by saving the fragments in SparceArray:

public abstract class SaveFragmentsPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {

    SparseArray<Fragment> fragments = new SparseArray<>();

    public SaveFragmentsPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
        super(fm);
    }

    @Override
    public Object instantiateItem(ViewGroup container, int position) {
        Fragment fragment = (Fragment) super.instantiateItem(container, position);
        fragments.append(position, fragment);
        return fragment;
    }

    @Nullable
    public Fragment getFragmentByPosition(int position){
        return fragments.get(position);
    }

}

You can remove the fragments when destroy the viewpager, in my case, I removed them on onDestroyView() of my fragment:

@Override
public void onDestroyView() {

    if (getChildFragmentManager().getFragments() != null) {
        for (Fragment fragment : getChildFragmentManager().getFragments()) {
            getChildFragmentManager().beginTransaction().remove(fragment).commitAllowingStateLoss();
        }
    }

    super.onDestroyView();
}

After a few hours of looking for a similar issue I think a have another solution. This one at least it worked for me and I only have to changed a couple of lines.

This is the problem I had, I have an activity with a view pager that uses a FragmentStatePagerAdapter with two Fragments. Everything works fine until I force the activity to get destroyed (developer options) or I rotate the screen. I do keep a reference to the two fragments after they get created inside the method getItem.

At that point the activity will be created again and everything works fine at this point but I have lost the reference to my fragmetns as getItem doesn't' get called again.

This is how I fixed that problem, inside the FragmentStatePagerAdapter:

    @Override
    public Object instantiateItem(ViewGroup container, int position) {
        Object aux = super.instantiateItem(container, position);

        //Update the references to the Fragments we have on the view pager
        if(position==0){
            fragTabOne = (FragOffersList)aux;
        }
        else{
            fragTabTwo = (FragOffersList) aux;
        }

        return aux;
    }

You won't get a call on getItem again if the adapter already has a reference to it internally, and you shouldn't change that. Instead you can get the fragment it's being used by looking at this other method instantiateItem() which will be called for each of your fragments.

Hope that helps anyone.

I faced the same issue but my ViewPager was inside a TopFragment which created and set an adapter using setAdapter(new FragmentPagerAdapter(getChildFragmentManager())).

I fixed this issue by overriding onAttachFragment(Fragment childFragment) in the TopFragment like this:

@Override
public void onAttachFragment(Fragment childFragment) {
    if (childFragment instanceof OnboardingDiamondsFragment) {
        mChildFragment = (ChildFragment) childFragment;
    }

    super.onAttachFragment(childFragment);
}

As known already (see answers above), when the childFragmentManager recreate itself, it also create the fragments which were inside the viewPager.
The important part is that after that, he calls onAttachFragment and now we have a reference to the new recreated fragment!

Hope this will help anyone getting this old Q like me :)

Since people don't tend to read comments, here is an answer that mostly duplicates what I wrote here:

the root cause of the issue is the fact that android system does not call getItem to obtain fragments that are actually displayed, but instantiateItem. This method first tries to lookup and reuse a fragment instance for a given tab in FragmentManager. Only if this lookup fails (which happens only the first time when FragmentManager is newly created) then getItem is called. It is for obvious reasons not to recreate fragments (that may be heavy) for example each time a user rotates his device.
To solve this, instead of creating fragments with Fragment.instantiate in your activity, you should do it with pagerAdapter.instantiateItem and all these calls should be surrounded by startUpdate/finishUpdate method calls that start/commit fragment transaction respectively. getItem should be the place where fragments are really created using their respective constructors.

List<Fragment> fragments = new Vector<Fragment>();

@Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.myLayout);
        ViewPager viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.myViewPager);
        MyPagerAdapter adapter = new MyPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager());
        viewPager.setAdapter(adapter);
        ((TabLayout) findViewById(R.id.tabs)).setupWithViewPager(viewPager);

        adapter.startUpdate(viewPager);
        fragments.add(adapter.instantiateItem(viewPager, 0));
        fragments.add(adapter.instantiateItem(viewPager, 1));
        // and so on if you have more tabs...
        adapter.finishUpdate(viewPager);
}

class MyPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {

        public MyPagerAdapter(FragmentManager manager) {super(manager);}

        @Override public int getCount() {return 2;}

        @Override public Fragment getItem(int position) {
            if (position == 0) return new Fragment0();
            if (position == 1) return new Fragment1();
            return null;  // or throw some exception
        }

        @Override public CharSequence getPageTitle(int position) {
            if (position == 0) return getString(R.string.tab0);
            if (position == 1) return getString(R.string.tab1);
            return null;  // or throw some exception
        }
}

Just so you know...

Adding to the litany of woes with these classes, there is a rather interesting bug that's worth sharing.

I'm using a ViewPager to navigate a tree of items (select an item and the view pager animates scrolling to the right, and the next branch appears, navigate back, and the ViewPager scrolls in the opposite direction to return to the previous node).

The problem arises when I push and pop fragments off the end of the FragmentStatePagerAdapter. It's smart enough to notice that the items change, and smart enough to create and replace a fragment when the item has changed. But not smart enough to discard the fragment state, or smart enough to trim the internally saved fragment states when the adapter size changes. So when you pop an item, and push a new one onto the end, the fragment for the new item gets the saved state of the fragment for the old item, which caused absolute havoc in my code. My fragments carry data that may require a lot of work to refetch from the internet, so not saving state really wasn't an option.

I don't have a clean workaround. I used something like this:

  public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
    IFragmentListener listener = (IFragmentListener)getActivity();
    if (listener!= null)
    {
        if (!listener.isStillInTheAdapter(this.getAdapterItem()))
        {
            return; // return empty state.
        }

    }
    super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);

    // normal saving of state for flips and 
    // paging out of the activity follows
    ....
  }

An imperfect solution because the new fragment instance still gets a savedState Bundle, but at least it doesn't carry stale data.

I solved this issue by accessing my fragments directly through the FragmentManager instead of via the FragmentPagerAdapter like so. First I need to figure out the tag of the fragment auto generated by the FragmentPagerAdapter...

private String getFragmentTag(int pos){
    return "android:switcher:"+R.id.viewpager+":"+pos;
}

Then I simply get a reference to that fragment and do what I need like so...

Fragment f = this.getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag(getFragmentTag(1));
((MyFragmentInterface) f).update(id, name);
viewPager.setCurrentItem(1, true);

Inside my fragments I set the setRetainInstance(false); so that I can manually add values to the savedInstanceState bundle.

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
    if(this.my !=null)
        outState.putInt("myId", this.my.getId());

    super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
}

and then in the OnCreate i grab that key and restore the state of the fragment as necessary. An easy solution which was hard (for me at least) to figure out.

Global working tested solution.

getSupportFragmentManager() keeps the null reference some times and View pager does not create new since it find reference to same fragment. So to over come this use getChildFragmentManager() solves problem in simple way.

Don't do this:

new PagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager(), fragments);

Do this:

new PagerAdapter(getChildFragmentManager() , fragments);