EditText doubling out on rotate

Question

I'm having an issue with an EditText control. This issue is only happening on this particular Activity and no other Activities with EditTexts. I have removed all setText calls for this EditText and the problem still persists.

I am running Android 2.3.4 on my mobile device. It is a Nexus S and running stock Android. In the emulator (running Android 2.2) this problem does not occur.

When I rotate the phone, Android automatically replaces the text that was in the EditText before the rotation. I'm not using savedInstanceState to do anything. Android is doing this itself.

My problem:

Suppose the word "test" is in the EditText. When I rotate the phone, Android will place "testtest" into the EditText when the Activity is re-created. This only happens when I use the virtual keyboard to type into the EditText, I do not click the "done" button on the virtual keyboard, I press back to remove the virtual keyboard, and I then rotate the device. If I use the "done" button instead of the back button, the problem does not occur.

Any ideas? As I said, I am NOT setting the text. All lines that call setText have been commented out.

Update 1: I have commented out everything in this Activity except the onCreate() method. Problem still occurring.

Update 2: I have created a new Activity. This brand new Activity has only an onCreate() method. The only thing in the onCreate() method is a call to setContentView (uses the same layout file) and calling super's onCreate(). Problem still persists. I'm stumped. The only thing I can guess is there's something whacky with the layout file. I haven't any idea what that would be.

Update 3: I have stripped everything out of the layout except the EditText. Problem still occurring.

what about editText.append() ? do you use such thing? if so maybe you should disable them as well — dds, May 15 '11 at 01:19
If you want to store EditText content over configuration change, I've been using [onRetainNonConfigurationInstance](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#onRetainNonConfigurationInstance%28%29) successfully so far. You can return your EditText content String from this method for example. And you can retrieve it on your onCreate using [getLastNonConfigurationInstance](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#getLastNonConfigurationInstance%28%29) which returns null if there's no saved data available. — harism, May 15 '11 at 01:20
Have you tried with a physical device? Updated your ADK? Honestly, sounds like a bug with your emulator. — Austin Hanson, Jul 26 '11 at 22:04
I have exactly the same problem. Device is Nexus S too. When done with writing in EditText, pressing the back button and quickly after that changing orientation, the content is doubled. But only the last typed in which was underscored and used for word suggestions. — , Jul 28 '11 at 21:24
Happening to me too. Thought I was going nuts at first. If I type, launch another activity, hit the back button, and then rotate, boom, double text. — Mark, Aug 11 '11 at 01:14
I have the same problem on my Nexus 4. And now (Jan 2013) textNoSuggestions is gone. I ended up using textVisiblePassword instead. It works, but this is so lame. — spotcatbug, Jan 10 '13 at 21:03
Looks to me this is a platform bug. It appears on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus but not on an HTC of a collegue. I reported it at: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=50573 — Almer, Feb 21 '13 at 14:52

score 13 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 08 '11 at 11:16

13

I had a similar problem but I only see it when the AutoComplete is turned on for the EditText.

My work around was to disable autocomplete. <EditText . . . android:inputType="textMultiLine|textNoSuggestions" />

edited Dec 08 '11 at 11:16

Brock Adams

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answered Jul 26 '11 at 22:00

isc.vhs

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This bug is still present on Android 4.0.3, but this fix works. But I'd really like to be able to offer my users autocomplete... – JDJ Apr 20 '14 at 03:22

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 02 '11 at 14:47

I came up with a work-around you could try. It works by subclassing EditText, catching a couple of events and then only accepting text changes that occur when the keyboard is shown, which should filter out any changes not made by the user typing something. I still have no idea what could be causing this though.

static class CustomEditText extends EditText{
    boolean keyboardHidden = true;
    String mText = null;
    public CustomEditText(Context context) {
        super(context);
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub
    }

    public CustomEditText(Context context, AttributeSet attr) {
        super(context, attr);
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub
    }

    //This gets called for any text field change, regardless of where the change comes from
    //When the phone flips and tries to double the text we can catch it.
    //If the keyboard is hidden (meaning the user isn't typing anything) the strings should match
    protected void onTextChanged(CharSequence text, int start, int before, int after){

        if(keyboardHidden && mText!=null && !text.toString().equals(mText)){
            setText(mText);
            setSelection(mText.length());
        }
        else
            mText = text.toString();
    }

    //There's no way right now to directly check if the soft keyboard is displayed
    //On touch, the soft keyboard is displayed by default for EditText, so assume the keyboard is displayed from this point on
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){
        keyboardHidden = false;
        super.onTouchEvent(event);
        return true;
    }

    //On a back press we're removing the soft keyboard so set the flag back to true
    public boolean dispatchKeyEventPreIme(KeyEvent event){
        if(event.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK){
            keyboardHidden = true;
        }
        return super.dispatchKeyEvent(event);
    }   

}

Thank you - I like this solution! I only want to add that if you decide to hide the keyboard on action "Done" for example, you can at the same time set keyboardHidden=true again. — Nims, Apr 07 '13 at 08:41

score -1 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 07 '11 at 05:19

-1

To handle rotation changes yourself add your manifest android:configChanges :

        <activity

        android:name="yourActivity"
        android:configChanges="orientation"></activity>

edited Sep 07 '11 at 05:19

Brian Webster

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answered May 15 '11 at 01:17

dds

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I tried this and it still replaces the text without me doing anything. – Andrew May 15 '11 at 01:21

EditText doubling out on rotate

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