Android HTTP Requests Working In Simulator But Not On Wear Device

Question

I am making a simple Android Wear app to control my thermostats, and I'm sending POST requests with Volley to control them. Everything works great in the Android Wear simulator (the request works), but, while the app does load on my Moto 360, the volley request gets called but invariably times out.

Why could my volley request be failing on my watch but working on the simulator? Other apps' requests succeed on my watch (for example, the built-in weather app can load up weather data in about 3 seconds). And, the weirdest part: I had the app working (successfully making volley requests) on my watch, and, about a day after I installed it to my watch from Android Studio, it suddenly stopped loading data for no apparent reason.

What I've tried so far:

• I have requested the Internet permission in my manifest.xml.
• I have increased the timeout to 30 seconds (see my code below), which didn't change anything.
• I have tried tethering my computer and the simulator to my phone's connection via Bluetooth (to replicate the Bluetooth connection my physical watch has to my phone), and the simulator made the request successfully still (albeit with a two-second delay), ruling out the possibility of Bluetooth being too slow.
• I made sure the API level is low enough for my Marshmallow-running watch (my watch and the app are both API level 23).
• I tried doing a quick test request to Google before the request to the company's servers with my thermostat data, and while the Google request returns the site's HTML code in the simulator, it times out on my watch (thirty seconds after the request is initiated).
• I tried putting some dummy data into the recycler view data should be loaded into, and the dummy data indeed showed up, ruling out that the recycler view is broken.
• I deleted the app from my watch and reinstalled it, and deleted the companion from my phone, reinstalled it, and deleted it again, all to no avail.
• A lengthy chat with Google Support did not produce anything meaningful.

Here's my code (from my main view's adapter):

public void refreshThermostatsRecyclerView(RequestQueue queue) {
    String url = "https://mobile.skyport.io:9090/login"; // login call to the thermostats server Skyport
     Log.w("myApp", "Starting /login call to Skyport"); // this gets called on simulator and watch
     // Request a string response from the provided URL.
     StringRequest stringRequest = new StringRequest(Request.Method.POST, url,
 Response.Listener<String>() {
       @Override
       public void onResponse(String response) {
           // Display the response string.
           Log.w("myApp", "Response is: " + response); // this gets called on the simulator but not the watch
           try {
               // there's some code to parse the data.
           } catch (JSONException e) {
                Log.w("myApp", "catching an error parsing the json."); // never gets called.
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
            }
      }, new Response.ErrorListener() {
            @Override
            public void onErrorResponse(VolleyError error) {
                Log.w("myApp", "Skyport request didn't work! " + error);  // this always gets called on the watch, with the error being a timeout error (com.Android.Volley.timeouterror) but never gets called in the simulator
            }
        }) {
            @Override
            public Map<String, String> getHeaders() throws AuthFailureError {
                Map<String, String> m = new HashMap<>();
                m.put("Referer", "app:/VenstarCloud.swf");
                // here I put some more headers
                return m;
            }

            @Override
            protected Map<String, String> getParams() throws AuthFailureError {
                Map<String, String> m = new HashMap<>();
                m.put("version", "3.0.5");
                m.put("email", userEmail);
                m.put("password", userToken);
                return m;
            }
        };
        // Add the request to the RequestQueue.
        int socketTimeout1 = 30000; // times out 30 seconds after the request starts on the watch
        RetryPolicy policy1 = new DefaultRetryPolicy(socketTimeout1, DefaultRetryPolicy.DEFAULT_MAX_RETRIES, DefaultRetryPolicy.DEFAULT_BACKOFF_MULT);
        stringRequest.setRetryPolicy(policy1);
        queue.add(stringRequest);
    }

Which is called from the onCreate() method in my Main Activity with this code:

RequestQueue queue = Volley.newRequestQueue(this);
refreshThermostatsRecyclerView(queue);

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If you'd like to view the logs created by running this in the simulator and on the watch, they're on Google Drive here.

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Edit 1: A reboot of my watch fixes the issue temporarily and allows the watch to make HTTP Requests again, but it breaks again once the watch disconnects from Bluetooth, connects to WiFi, disconnects from WiFi, and reconnects to Bluetooth (so it breaks every time I go across my apartment without my phone and then return).

Edit 2: I switched the volley requests all over to HTTPURLConnection Requests in an Async thread, and the same issues occur as with volley.

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tl;dr: My app's Volley requests are working in the simulator but not on my Android Wear watch anymore (though Play Store-downloaded apps' similar requests work), how can I get a volley request to work again on my app on the watch?

Answer 1

As per these two conversations below, it seems that WiFi connectivity only allows Android Wear to connect to a phone over WiFi and not directly to the Internet. However, Android Wear 2.0 lets you use regular network APIs.

Direct internet connection on Android Wear?

Does Android Wear support direct access to the Internet?

So, for Android Wear 2.0+ Volley requests from wearable app should work.

If you want to use Android Wear <2.0, then:

On Wearable, in onCreate() add a key that indicates whether the phone should start collecting data.

PutDataMapRequest putDataMapReq = PutDataMapRequest.create("/shouldStart");
putDataMapReq.getDataMap().putBoolean(SHOULD_START_KEY, true);
PutDataRequest putDataReq = putDataMapReq.asPutDataRequest();
PendingResult pendingResult = Wearable.DataApi.putDataItem(mGoogleApiClient, putDataReq);

On phone, in onDataChanged, check if wearable wants to start collecting data. If yes, start Volley request.

for (DataEvent event : dataEvents) {
        if (event.getType() == DataEvent.TYPE_CHANGED) {
            // DataItem changed
            DataItem item = event.getDataItem();
            if (item.getUri().getPath().compareTo("/shouldStart") == 0) {
                DataMap dataMap = DataMapItem.fromDataItem(item).getDataMap();
                boolean shouldStart = dataMap.getBoolean(SHOULD_START_KEY));
                if(shouldStart) {
                    Volley.newRequestQueue(this).add(request);
                }

            }
        } else if (event.getType() == DataEvent.TYPE_DELETED) {
            // DataItem deleted
        }
    }

Then, your Volley request's onResponse should pass data back to Wearable.

public void onResponse(String response) {

    PutDataMapRequest putDataMapReq = PutDataMapRequest.create("/data");
    putDataMapReq.getDataMap().putString(DATA_KEY, true);
    PutDataRequest putDataReq = putDataMapReq.asPutDataRequest();
    PendingResult pendingResult = Wearable.DataApi.putDataItem(mGoogleApiClient, putDataReq);

 }

Finally, you can access data in your Wearable using onDataChanged and store it in your model for passing it onto adapter:

for (DataEvent event : dataEvents) {
    if (event.getType() == DataEvent.TYPE_CHANGED) {
         // DataItem changed
         DataItem item = event.getDataItem();
         if (item.getUri().getPath().compareTo("/data") == 0) {
             DataMap dataMap = DataMapItem.fromDataItem(item).getDataMap();
             parseAndpassToAdapter(dataMap.getString(DATA_KEY));
         }
    } else if (event.getType() == DataEvent.TYPE_DELETED) {
            // DataItem deleted
    }
}

You'll need Wearable.API to implement this and your class should implement DataApi.DataListener. For more information getting started, refer to Accessing the Wearable Data Layer and Syncing Data Items

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I am also using volley on an Android wear app I built and I am running it on a Moto 360, I have run into the same problem a couple o times. Try restarting the device. Go to Settings > Restart. It sounds silly but it has worked for me.