android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file: Error inflating class fragment

Question

I have a very frustrating error that I cannot explain. I created an Android application that uses Android AppCompat to make it compatible with older versions. Here is my main activity layout file:

<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/drawer_layout"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <!-- As the main content view, the view below consumes the entire
         space available using match_parent in both dimensions. -->
    <FrameLayout
        android:id="@+id/container"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent" />

    <!-- android:layout_gravity="start" tells DrawerLayout to treat
         this as a sliding drawer on the left side for left-to-right
         languages and on the right side for right-to-left languages.
         If you're not building against API 17 or higher, use
         android:layout_gravity="left" instead. -->

    <!-- The drawer is given a fixed width in dp and extends the full height of
         the container. -->
    <fragment android:id="@+id/navigation_drawer"
        android:layout_width="@dimen/navigation_drawer_width"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_gravity="start"
        android:name="com.fragment.NavigationDrawerFragment" />

</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>

And here is main code of my activity :

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {
@Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
   }
}

The main problem here is : above code run smoothly on almost devices (stimulated device, or some real devices). But when I run it on Samsung S3. It notices this error:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{view.MainActivity}: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #25: Error inflating class fragment
            at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2081)
            at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2106)
            at android.app.ActivityThread.access$700(ActivityThread.java:134)
            at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1217)
            at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
            at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
            at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4856)
            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
            at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
            at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1007)
            at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:774)
            at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
     Caused by: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #25: Error inflating class fragment
            at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:704)
            at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:746)
            at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:489)
            at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:396)
            at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:352)
            at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.setContentView(PhoneWindow.java:316)
            at android.app.Activity.setContentView(Activity.java:1901)
            at android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity.superSetContentView(ActionBarActivity.java:208)
            at android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivityDelegateICS.setContentView(ActionBarActivityDelegateICS.java:111)
            at android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity.setContentView(ActionBarActivity.java:76)

Please tell me how to fix error, thanks :)

Answer 1

TL/DR: An exception occurred during the creation of a fragment referenced from a higher-level layout XML. This exception caused the higher-level layout inflation to fail, but the initial exception was not reported; only the higher-level inflation failure shows up in the stack trace. To find the root cause, you have to catch and log the initial exception.

---

The initial cause of the error could be a wide variety of things, which is why there are so many different answers here as to what fixed the problem for each person. For some, it had to do with the id, class, or name attributes. For others it was due to a permissions issue or a build setting. For me, those didn't fix the problem; instead there was a drawable resource that existed only in drawable-ldrtl-xhdpi, instead of in an applicable place like drawable.

But those are just details. The big-picture problem is that the error message that shows up in logcat doesn't describe the exception that started it all. When a higher-level layout XML references a fragment, the fragment's onCreateView() is called. When an exception occurs in a fragment's onCreateView() (for example while inflating the fragment's layout XML), it causes the inflation of the higher-level layout XML to fail. This higher-level inflation failure is what gets reported as an exception in the error logs. But the initial exception doesn't seem to travel up the chain well enough to be reported.

Given that situation, the question is how to expose the initial exception, when it doesn't show up in the error log.

The solution is pretty straightforward: Put a try/catch block around the contents of the fragment's onCreateView(), and in the catch clause, log the exception:

public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup contnr, Bundle savedInstSt) {
    try {
        mContentView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.device_detail_frag, null);
        // ... rest of body of onCreateView() ...
    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e(TAG, "onCreateView", e);
        throw e;
    }
}

It may not be obvious which fragment class's onCreateView() to do this to, in which case, do it to each fragment class that's used in the layout that caused the problem. For example, in the OP's case, the app's code where the exception occurred was

at android.app.Activity.setContentView(Activity.java:1901)

which is

   setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

So you need to catch exceptions in the onCreateView() of any fragments referenced in layout activity_main.

In my case, the root cause exception turned out to be

Caused by: android.content.res.Resources$NotFoundException: Resource
   "com.example.myapp:drawable/details_view" (7f02006f)  is not a
   Drawable (color or path): TypedValue{t=0x1/d=0x7f02006f a=-1
   r=0x7f02006f}

This exception didn't show up in the error log until I caught it in onCreateView() and logged it explicitly. Once it was logged, the problem was easy enough to diagnose and fix (details_view.xml existed only under the ldrtl-xhdpi folder, for some reason). The key was catching the exception that was the root of the problem, and exposing it.

It doesn't hurt to do this as a boilerplate in all your fragments' onCreateView() methods. If there is an uncaught exception in there, it will crash the activity regardless. The only difference is that if you catch and log the exception in onCreateView(), you won't be in the dark as to why it happened.

P.S. I just realized this answer is related to @DaveHubbard's, but uses a different approach for finding the root cause (logging vs. debugger).

Answer 2

After long time for debugging, I have fixed this problem. (Although I still cannot explain why). That I change property android:name to class. (although on Android Document, they say those properties are same, but it works !!!)

So, it should change from :

 android:name="com.fragment.NavigationDrawerFragment"

to

class = "com.fragment.NavigationDrawerFragment"

So, new layout should be :

<!-- As the main content view, the view below consumes the entire
     space available using match_parent in both dimensions. -->
<FrameLayout
    android:id="@+id/container"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" />

<!-- android:layout_gravity="start" tells DrawerLayout to treat
     this as a sliding drawer on the left side for left-to-right
     languages and on the right side for right-to-left languages.
     If you're not building against API 17 or higher, use
     android:layout_gravity="left" instead. -->

<!-- The drawer is given a fixed width in dp and extends the full height of
     the container. -->
<fragment android:id="@+id/navigation_drawer"
    android:layout_width="@dimen/navigation_drawer_width"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="start"
    class = "com.fragment.NavigationDrawerFragment" />

Hope this help :)