ActivityUnitTestCase and startActivity with ActionBarActivity

Question

I try to test a Activity which uses ActionBarActivity (from the appcompat library). I need a custom Application to be able to manipulate the DI system to load my test service instead of the real service.

If I have my test written and call startActivity I get the following error:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: You need to use a Theme.AppCompat theme (or descendant) with this activity.

If I call launchActivityWithIntent the Activity starts without any problems but It is using my Real Application class instead of the Mocked Application class. Any ideas how I can fix that or how I can execute code after onCreate of the application was called but before onCreate of my Activity get's called within my instrument test?

Answer 1

The accepted answer didn't work in my case, but including something this in the ActicityUnitTestCase subclass worked for me:

@Override
public void setUp(){
    ContextThemeWrapper context = new ContextThemeWrapper(getInstrumentation().getTargetContext(), R.style.AppTheme);
    setActivityContext(context);
}