getActionBar() returns null

Question

I'm having an odd problem. I am making an app with targetsdk 13.

In my main activity's onCreate method i call getActionBar() to setup my actionbar. This works fine when running on the Android 3.2 emulator, but when using Android 3.0 and 3.1 the getActionBar() method returns null.

I find this extremely odd, and i cannot see any reason why it would do so. Is this a bug with the emulators or is there something i need to do, in order to ensure that my application has an actionbar?

SOLUTION: I think I've found a solution for this problem. I wasn't using the setContentView to set a layout for the activity. Instead I was using fragmentTransaction.add(android.R.id.content, mFragment, mTag) to add a fragment to the activity. This worked fine in 3.2, but in earlier honeycomb versions the action bar is apparently not set if you don't use the setContentView in the onCreate() method. So I fixed it by using the setContentView() method in my onCreate() method and just supplying it with a layout that contained an empty FrameLayout. I can still use the fragmentTransaction.add(android.R.id.content, mFragment, mTag) method the same way as before.

It's not the prettiest fix, but it works.

as you pointed in answering another post you need a Holo theme. Don't suppose you specified your holo theme in a v13 res folder only? Sorry if that sounds too obvious. — PJL, Jul 29 '11 at 11:06
No, that was my first thought too, but that's not the case. Thanks for your reply though. — Christian Skogsberg, Jul 29 '11 at 12:48

score 241 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 23 '15 at 01:24

241

Can use getSupportActionBar() instead of getActionBar() method.

edited Jan 23 '15 at 01:24

msysmilu

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answered Dec 30 '14 at 20:54

Amir

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out of all from here, this did it for me! – msysmilu Jan 23 '15 at 00:25
17

thanks, I was using "android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity" so this did it for me. – velval Jan 29 '15 at 23:00
1

After 2 hours of searching ! Changing to getSupportActionBar() and android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity finally fixes it for me. – FacePalm Oct 26 '15 at 05:35
This is the solution to the problem. – zygimantus Jun 10 '16 at 09:48

Jorgesys · Answer 2 · 2015-07-22T17:40:34.830

48

If you are using the support library

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

use `getSupportActionBar()` instead of `getActionBar()`

* Update:

The class ActionBarActivity now is deprecated:

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;

I recommend to use:

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity

edited Jul 22 '15 at 17:40

answered Mar 21 '15 at 00:01

Jorgesys

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within `android.support.v7.app`: `ActionBarActivity` deprecated Use `android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity` instead. – A. Petrov Jul 07 '15 at 10:59

score 37 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 27 '16 at 03:35

if you are using android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity

public class HomeActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

Then you should be using android.support.v7.app.ActionBar

  ActionBar ab = getSupportActionBar();

If you are using android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity

public class HomeActivity extends FragmentActivity {

then you should be using android.app.ActionBar

    ActionBar ab = getActionBar();

If you are using android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity

public class HomeActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

you should be using android.support.v7.app.ActionBar

   ActionBar ab = getSupportActionBar();

score 35 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 26 '13 at 14:33

35

You have to define window type as actionbar before activity render its view.

use

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);

before calling setContentView() method.

answered Aug 26 '13 at 14:33

kaushal trivedi

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If getSupportActionBar() doesn't work, then this works like a charm – Ashwin Balani Jun 12 '18 at 12:48

score 31 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 18 '11 at 15:56

31

I faced the above issue where getActionBar() method returns null. I was calling the getActionBar() after setting the setContentView() and still its returning a null.

I resolved the issue by setting the min-sdk version in Android Manifest file that was missing initially. <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="11" />

answered Oct 18 '11 at 15:56

Rajendra

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4

This saved me so much time! Anybody using the Bluetooth Chat example app in the Android SDK needs to use this fix. The app's manifest neglects to include the "android:" namespace in its minSdkVersion tag and so it doesn't register. Adding the namespace fixes an error with the action bar not being found. Sloppy, Google! – Nick Nov 29 '12 at 18:58
Actually you might just need to specify targetSdkVersion. You can run with a lower minSdkVersion if you are using the compat library, but targetSdkVersion determines the behaviour. – William Dec 23 '13 at 03:41
solved my issue thanks – Majid Jun 27 '15 at 20:17

Himanshu Virmani · Answer 6 · 2014-09-14T10:08:11.520

ActionBar needs application or activity's Theme to have an app title. Make sure you have not styled your application or activity as Theme.NOTITLE.

<application
    android:name="com.xxx.yyy"
    android:debuggable="false"
    android:icon="@drawable/icon"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/Theme.NoTitle"> // remove this line if you have this in your code


<activity
        android:name="com.xxx.yyy.Activity"
        android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|screenSize"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.NoTitle"  // remove this line if you have in your code
        android:windowSoftInputMode="adjustResize|stateHidden" >

And also if you have theme declaration in xml where you add Toolbar remove 'android:theme' from there as-well — KAPLANDROID, Feb 28 '22 at 16:42

score 19 · Answer 7 · edited Aug 19 '16 at 06:55

19

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;

then

extends AppCompatActivity

then use

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

edited Aug 19 '16 at 06:55

Chris

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answered Aug 19 '16 at 06:51

Abilash Rajasekaran

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fixes my problem in google's navigation drawer example. – Weishi Z Oct 18 '16 at 18:29
Good solution, yet for those who will implement it will most probably get compatibility based errors. If you happen to do so, make sure to check your imports s.a. android.support.v4.app.FragmentTransaction instead of just android.app.FragmentTransaction and android.support.v7.app.ActionBar instead of android.app.ActionBar – Sergey Emeliyanov Sep 11 '17 at 16:22

score 18 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 22 '13 at 02:23

This answer is late but might be helpful to anyone who arrives from Google: You might well need to declare

<item name="android:windowActionBar">true</item>

in your styles.xml. It seems false can be the default. You also need to be on API 11 or higher.

More details can be found in the documentation here. Specifically, quote:

Tip: If you have a custom activity theme in which you'd like to remove the action bar, set the android:windowActionBar style property to false. However, if you remove the action bar using a theme, then the window will not allow the action bar at all, so you cannot add it later—calling getActionBar() will return null.

score 11 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 03 '14 at 09:31

I had the same problem and one of the solutions was to use setContentView() before calling getActionBar().

But there was another thing that fixed the problem. I specified theme for the application to be @android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.

<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light" >
    ...
</application>

I think any theme, which has <item name="android:windowActionBar">true</item> in it, can be used.

Thanks, it works for me. In my case, getActionBar() method also returned null and I could resolved it changing the theme style to Theme.Holo.Light. With some other themes (e.g. Theme.AppCompat), it seems that the ActionBar is not active, so its value is null. — harrakiss, Dec 31 '14 at 00:09

score 10 · Answer 10 · edited Mar 09 '15 at 16:41

The main reason for that is using themes that are not supporting ActionBar:

In manifest file add the following either in your target activity or application element (if you want to unify the theme over whole application)

Examples of themes that are supporting action bar "Theme.AppCompat.Light" or "Theme.Holo.Light" ...

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light"

It is better to put all styles in styles.xml and use it everywhere using "@style/themName" so the previous one will be

android:theme="@style/AppTheme"

and styles.xml will have the following:

 <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">

Hints:

There is some themes that can not be used in old SDKs like "@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar" is not supported before SDKs version 14.
To allow your app to support minimum specific version of SDK you could add the following under <app> element:
```
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="14" />
```
To specify min SDK version in AndroidStudio, you could by using app's Gradle file.
```
android{
  defaultConfig{
    minSdkVersion 14
    targetSdkVersion 21
  }
}
```

but what do I do to support API level 9-13, incase I use Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar — Sid, Mar 20 '17 at 08:20

score 8 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 08 '13 at 17:27

8

I ran into this problem . I was checking for version number and enabling the action bar only if it is greater or equal to Honeycomb , but it was returning null. I found the reason and root cause was that I had disabled the Holo Theme style in style.xml under values-v11 folder.

answered Apr 08 '13 at 17:27

Pratap Singh

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I have got my issue resolved by using Holo Theme as parent theme of my AppTheme. – Bharat Dodeja Mar 19 '15 at 11:33

NEERAJ GUPTA · Answer 12 · 2016-02-03T12:19:05.123

8

go to the AndroidManifest.xml and replace

android:theme="@style/AppTheme"

by

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar"

edited Feb 03 '16 at 12:19

answered Jan 29 '16 at 04:48

NEERAJ GUPTA

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score 8 · Answer 13 · answered Mar 28 '18 at 05:56

8

Use getSupportActionBar() instead of getActionBar()

answered Mar 28 '18 at 05:56

sonal balekai

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score 4 · Answer 14 · edited May 01 '15 at 18:33

In my case, I had this in my code which did not work:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    context = getApplicationContext();

    requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}

Then I played with the order of the code:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    context = getApplicationContext();
}

And it worked!

Conclusion: requestWindowFeature should be the first thing you call in the onCreate method.

score 4 · Answer 15 · answered Oct 26 '17 at 14:31

I had the same issue. It solved by chaning App theme in styles.xml

Before

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

After

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">

score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:55

2

One thing I wanted to add since I just ran into this, if you are trying to getActionBar() on an Activity that has a parent, it will return null. I am trying to refactor code where my Activity is contained inside an ActivityGroup, and it took a good few minutes for me to go "oh duh" after looking at the source of how an ActionBar gets created in source.

answered Feb 28 '12 at 16:55

C Nick

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could you post your solution for activity groups? – Anthea Sep 12 '12 at 14:25
My solution from what I remember is I refactored my code to not use any ActivityGroups. Sorry I don't have code snippets :( – C Nick Sep 12 '12 at 19:35
This isn't actually a solutio; more of a comment. But very useful! – Kato Oct 26 '16 at 16:15

score 1 · Answer 17 · edited Oct 29 '15 at 07:45

1

I solve it by this changes:

change in minifest android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light" >
add to class extends ActionBarActivity
add import to class import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity

edited Oct 29 '15 at 07:45

Ori Lentz

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answered Oct 29 '15 at 07:37

Sharon or Weissberg

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A-Sharabiani · Answer 18 · 2018-03-18T06:43:10.293

1

To add to the other answers:

Make sure you call setActionBar() or setSupportActionBar() in your onCreate() method before calling the getActionBar():

Define some Toolbar in your activity.xml, then in the onCreate():

Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.my_toolbar);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
// Now you can use the get methods:
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

edited Mar 18 '18 at 06:43

answered Mar 18 '18 at 06:28

A-Sharabiani

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score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Jun 12 '19 at 21:58

In my case I simply had to extend AppCompatActivity instead of Activity

    supportActionBar?.setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true)

Full activity example class:

import android.os.Bundle import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity

//class LocationFound : Activity() { <-----Does not seem to work with ActionBar in recent versions
class LocationFound : AppCompatActivity() {

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_location_found)

        supportActionBar?.setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true)
    } }

On Versions

    minSdkVersion 22
    targetSdkVersion 29

score 0 · Answer 20 · edited Jul 09 '13 at 03:19

I know I am late to the party (and new to Android) on this question but I found the information here very helpful and thought I should add the findings of my own endeavours with getting ActionBar to work as I wanted in case others like me come looking for help.

I have a widget which is a floating window with no window title. I use a style theme to implement android:windowIsFloating, android:backgroundDimEnabled and android:windowNoTitle. The widget worked fine until I wanted to add a button that called a fragment pager with several list fragment pages and used the ActionBar. It would crash on the pager activity with a null pointer exception. I narrowed it down to the ActionBar being null. Following the findings of previous people who contributed to this thread I removed my theme from the manifest file and the ActionBar worked fine but now my window now longer floated (it was fullscreen) and it had a page title I did not want.

Further research took me to the Styles and Themes API Training Guide which led me to a solution. I discovered I could add my custom theme to individual activities in the manifest file whereas before I was applying it to the application. All my windows now have the desired appearance.

score 0 · Answer 21 · answered Dec 16 '14 at 22:51

0

Try extending your Activity class from ActionBarActivity. This solved it for me. Do something like the following:

public class MyActivity extends ActionBarActivity
{
  . . .

In my case the class was extending only from Activity.

answered Dec 16 '14 at 22:51

Alyoshak

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score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Feb 24 '15 at 11:01

This may also help some people.

In my case, it was because I had not defined a context in the menu.xml

Try this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
tools:context="com.example.android.ActionBarActivity">

Instead of this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

score 0 · Answer 23 · answered Nov 05 '15 at 07:28

Just check the implementation of source code by command click:

    private void initWindowDecorActionBar() {
    Window window = getWindow();

    // Initializing the window decor can change window feature flags.
    // Make sure that we have the correct set before performing the test below.
    window.getDecorView();

    if (isChild() || !window.hasFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR) || mActionBar != null) {
        return;
    }

    mActionBar = new WindowDecorActionBar(this);
    mActionBar.setDefaultDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(mEnableDefaultActionBarUp);

    mWindow.setDefaultIcon(mActivityInfo.getIconResource());
    mWindow.setDefaultLogo(mActivityInfo.getLogoResource());
}

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR); Fixed my issue as I saw requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR) is failing; code is open source use it !!

Akhila · Answer 24 · 2018-09-06T17:37:22.733

0

android.support.v7.app.ActionBar actionBar = getSupportActionBar();

works pretty quickly

edited Sep 06 '18 at 17:37

answered Sep 04 '18 at 18:40

Akhila

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While this code may answer the question, providing additional context regarding how and/or why it solves the problem would improve the answer's long-term value. – Nic3500 Sep 05 '18 at 00:33

score 0 · Answer 25 · answered Apr 22 '22 at 05:54

0

If calling this method from Fragment the make sure to call this in onActivityCreated()

answered Apr 22 '22 at 05:54

Chetan Gaikwad

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score -2 · Answer 26 · answered Jun 02 '23 at 05:09

The issue of getActionBar() returning null typically occurs in Android when you're trying to access the ActionBar, which is the top bar that typically contains the app's title, navigation buttons, and other app-specific actions, but it is not available or has not been set up properly. Here are some possible solutions:

Use getSupportActionBar() instead of getActionBar(): If you are using the Support Library or the AndroidX library, you should use getSupportActionBar() instead of getActionBar() to access the ActionBar. This is because getActionBar() is only available for apps that target the older versions of Android (prior to Android 3.0), while getSupportActionBar() is backward-compatible and can be used across different Android versions. Make you have included the appropriate support library or AndroidX dependency in your project, and update your code to use getSupportActionBar().

// Using getSupportActionBar() in an AppCompatActivity or a FragmentActivity
ActionBar actionBar = getSupportActionBar();
if (actionBar != null) {
    // Do something with the actionBar
} else {
    // ActionBar is not available
}

En that the ActionBar is set up in your layout: In order to use the ActionBar, it needs to be properly set up in your layout. Make that your activity's layout XML file includes a theme that supports the ActionBar, and that you have defined the ActionBar in your layout file using the appropriate XML tags. For example, you can use the <androidx.appcompat.widget.Toolbar> tag to define the ActionBar in your layout XML file.

see more on here devissuefixer.com

This answer looks like it was generated by an AI (like ChatGPT), not by an actual human being. You should be aware that [posting AI-generated output is officially **BANNED** on Stack Overflow](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/421831). If this answer was indeed generated by an AI, then I strongly suggest you delete it before you get yourself into even bigger trouble: **WE TAKE PLAGIARISM SERIOUSLY HERE.** Please read: [Why posting GPT and ChatGPT generated answers is not currently acceptable](https://stackoverflow.com/help/gpt-policy). — tchrist, Jul 04 '23 at 00:52

getActionBar() returns null

26 Answers26

If you are using the support library

use `getSupportActionBar()` instead of `getActionBar()`

* Update:

The class ActionBarActivity now is deprecated:

Linked

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