android parent activity killed on startActivity

Question

I have a simple application with a listview. When a user taps on a list item, i start a new activity

Intent eventdetails = new Intent(HomeActivity.this,EventDetailsActivity.class);
eventdetails.putExtra("eventId", ev.getId());
eventdetails.putExtra("eventDate", ev.getEnglishDate());
startActivity(eventdetails);

As soon as the EventDetailsActivity is started, the HomeActivity is destroyed (onDestroy is called). WHen the user hits the back button from EventDetailsActivity, the HomeActivity is recreated which is something i do not want.

I havent been able to figure out why the HomeActivity is killed in the first place. I checked the activity stack using udb as well and it does not show the HomeActivity

Running activities (most recent first):
Run #0: ActivityRecord{43938cc8 com.app.event/.EventDetailsActivity}

This is happening only on Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Any idea why this would be happening ?

Gopal Gopi · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-07T10:06:03.890

6

this will happen when the user has enabled this setting

goto settings->Developer options

in that in APPS category(scroll down to see), see the option
Don't keep Activities (Destroy every Activity as soon as user leaves it).

see this option is selected or not

edited Jun 07 '16 at 10:06

answered Dec 02 '13 at 10:01

Gopal Gopi

11,101
1
30
43

Thanks Gopal, this worked like a charm! It was driving me crazy – Sameer S Dec 02 '13 at 10:24
This is the answer I was looking for 2 days!! – mountrix Aug 21 '17 at 21:04
thank you this was the only working and logical solution to my problem – Tanner Summers Oct 07 '17 at 02:17

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 02 '13 at 10:00

3

Intent eventdetails = new Intent(HomeActivity.this,EventDetailsActivity.class);
eventdetails.putExtra("eventId", ev.getId());
eventdetails.putExtra("eventDate", ev.getEnglishDate());
eventdetails.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
eventdetails.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(eventdetails);
HomeActivity.this.finish();

try this code let me know if its help you

answered Dec 02 '13 at 10:00

Shahil Modan

358
1
11

this will destroy HomeActivity which he don't want to do – Gopal Gopi Dec 02 '13 at 10:20

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 20 '18 at 15:12

2

Maybe that'll be useful for someone - in my case the problem was that the parent activity was defined in the manifest with

android:noHistory="true"

With this setting it was killed as soon as the new activity was opened. See How does android:noHistory="true" work?

answered Mar 20 '18 at 15:12

algrid

5,600
3
34
37

exactly what I overlooked! – Oleksii Masnyi Oct 28 '20 at 13:11

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 02 '13 at 10:12

its because android manages the process of release activities,if you want to finish the previous activity,then add this after start activity:

HomeActivity.this.finish();

either you can you use flag to clear previous activities

eventdetails.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
eventdetails.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

or both:

Intent eventdetails = new Intent(HomeActivity.this,EventDetailsActivity.class);
eventdetails.putExtra("eventId", ev.getId());
eventdetails.putExtra("eventDate", ev.getEnglishDate());
eventdetails.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
eventdetails.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(eventdetails);
HomeActivity.this.finish();

hope it will help to resolve the issue.

Thanks Hamad for replying, but Gopal's solution worked. I didnt want to kill the HomeActivity, it was getting killed.. which i did not want. — Sameer S, Dec 02 '13 at 10:25

android parent activity killed on startActivity

4 Answers4

Linked