What causes a MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL in Android?

Question

I am working through debugging some touch handling stuff on Android, and am trying to figure out why the MotionEvent sent to my View's onTouchListener contains a cancel action. I have not been able to find any documentation on its cause, and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction for debugging this problem - error codes, source code, or some general knowledge.

@0gravity, I mean if `event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL` — Phil, Aug 14 '12 at 21:20

score 63 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

63

Is this what you are looking for:

"ACTION_CANCEL occurs when the parent takes possession of the motion, for example when the user has dragged enough across a list view that it will start scrolling instead of letting you press the buttons inside of it. You can find out more about it at the viewgroup documentation: onInterceptTouchEvent."

Hope that is the answer you are looking for:

Resources: Motion Event, Stack Overflow.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

Community

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answered Aug 14 '12 at 21:29

0gravity

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It also happens on rotation, which wasn't clear to me from the above. – GDanger Feb 19 '15 at 21:08

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 05 '19 at 00:14

All you need is to call

requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);

on the parent view, like this -

        @Override
        public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent motionEvent) {
            view.getParent().requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(true);
            switch(motionEvent.getActio){
            }

            return false; 

         }

Source: onInterceptTouchEvent, onTouchEvent only see ACTION_DOWN

yoAlex5 · Answer 3 · 2020-04-18T19:11:11.293

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ACTION_CANCEL is triggered by ancestor to notify all descendants that they lost onTouch control and it's will be responsible for handling the next onTouch event. Usually it is caused when a descendant returned true in onTouch or onTouchEvent method but after that, during the next of touch event of gesture, an ancestor returned true in onInterceptTouchEvent()

[Touch event flow]

edited Apr 18 '20 at 19:11

answered Jul 26 '19 at 14:41

yoAlex5

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 26 '21 at 09:32

In my situation, TouchDelegate helped.

https://medium.com/android-news/android-change-touch-area-of-view-by-touchdelegate-fc19f2a34021

private fun changeTouchableAreaOfView(view: View, extraSpace: Int) {
val parent = view.parent as View
Observable.just(parent)
        .observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
        .subscribeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
        .subscribe {
            val touchableArea = Rect()
            view.getHitRect(touchableArea)
            touchableArea.top -= extraSpace
            touchableArea.bottom += extraSpace
            touchableArea.left -= extraSpace
            touchableArea.right += extraSpace
            parent.touchDelegate = TouchDelegate(touchableArea, button)
        }

/* In case you don't want to use Rx java
parent.post {
    val touchableArea = Rect()
    button.getHitRect(touchableArea)
    touchableArea.top -= extraSpace
    touchableArea.bottom += extraSpace
    touchableArea.left -= extraSpace
    touchableArea.right += extraSpace
    parent.touchDelegate = TouchDelegate(touchableArea, button)
}
*/

}

score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 14 '12 at 21:29

-1

When the drag moves out of view rect, you get ACTION_CANCEL

answered Aug 14 '12 at 21:29

Chitranshu Asthana

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This does not happen at all times, even when the finger is already outside the boundaries of the touched view ACTION_CANCEL won't be called but ACTION_UP. – Compaq LE2202x Oct 31 '13 at 07:30

What causes a MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL in Android?

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