Null pointer exception when trying to programmatically perform click on non visible Recycler view item

Question

I have a recycler view and I want to perform click on one of its items.

Here is my code:

mRecyclerView.findViewHolderForAdapterPosition(2).itemView.performClick();

It works fine when the item is visible, but when it is not visible i'm getting a null pointer exception

also i tried scroll to position before perform click but i got same result

Any idea on how to solve this issue?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited May 28 '22 at 06:11

9

I have solved my problem with this code

mRecyclerView.getLayoutManager().scrollToPosition(17);

search_list.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        mRecyclerView.findViewHolderForAdapterPosition(17).itemView.performClick();

    }
}, 50);

There is a slight delay for the viewholder to be created. Thus if the item is clicked before viewholder is created an NPE would occur

edited May 28 '22 at 06:11

Kozmotronik

2,080
3
10
25

answered Oct 29 '15 at 12:35

Antwan

3,837
9
41
62

1

Thank you so much, you saved my day. – eyadMhanna Oct 29 '15 at 14:30
Using delay is a very unwise choice, you don't know how much time it takes to draw the view, and when the delay time is less than the drawing time, you will get NPE – lazy Oct 07 '20 at 01:26

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 28 '15 at 17:39

2

Unfortunately for you, this is working as intended. When a child View is scrolled out of the boundaries of a RecyclerView, the child View is often reused to display another item for another position in the list, hence you will get a null View for the position that is no longer displayed.

What you can do is implement a getItem() on the RecyclerView.Adapter to retrieve the item for that position. Not sure if that satisfies your requirements though.

answered Oct 28 '15 at 17:39

Some Noob Student

14,186
13
65
103

Hey ,thanks man for your response I have to issue her that i was trying to prevent recycler view from reusing its item like what we can do with list view but i didn't find a solution for this , – Antwan Oct 28 '15 at 17:41
and i tried tp perform scroll to position before performclick to make the item visible but it didn't works also – Antwan Oct 28 '15 at 17:42
could plz clarify me how to implement getitem and return the corrent viewholder for position? – Antwan Oct 28 '15 at 18:37

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 07 '20 at 01:36

It is recommended to use a listener to wait for the drawing to complete, Then perform the operation you want.

    recyclerView.getViewTreeObserver().addOnGlobalLayoutListener(
    new ViewTreeObserver.OnGlobalLayoutListener() {
        @Override
        public void onGlobalLayout() {
            // At this point the layout is complete 
            recyclerView.getViewTreeObserver().removeOnGlobalLayoutListener(this);
        }
    });

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 05 '23 at 02:37

This works for me. Regards!

void emulate_userClick()
{
    RecyclerView.ViewHolder xView = xRecycler.findViewHolderForAdapterPosition(xPosition);

    if( isNull(xView) )
    {   xRecycler.removeOnScrollListener(listener_onScroll);
        xRecycler.addOnScrollListener(listener_onScroll);
        xRecycler.smoothScrollToPosition(xPosition);
    }
    else
    {      Objects.requireNonNull( xRecycler.findViewHolderForAdapterPosition(xPosition)).itemView.performClick();
    }
    
}
RecyclerView.OnScrollListener listener_onScroll = new RecyclerView.OnScrollListener()
{
    @Override public void onScrollStateChanged(RecyclerView recyclerView, int newState) {
        switch (newState) 
        {   case SCROLL_STATE_IDLE:  //we reached the target position
                Objects.requireNonNull(xRecycler.findViewHolderForAdapterPosition(xPosition)).itemView.performClick();
                recyclerView.removeOnScrollListener(this);
            break;
        }
    }
};

Null pointer exception when trying to programmatically perform click on non visible Recycler view item

4 Answers4

Linked