App Closes after calling setComponentEnabledSetting for using Activity Alias

Question

In my app I want to change the icon of the app based on the notification received. i.e if there are 2 notifications received, then the app icon having "2" in it will be shown in home screen of the device.

For this I have used activity alias. I have added following intent filters for the activity alias:

    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
    </intent-filter>

And to make a activity-alias active I have used following code:

This is to enable the activity alias:

 ComponentName componentName = new ComponentName("PACKAGE_NAME_HERE",
                    lastEnabled);
            pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(componentName,
                    PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_ENABLED,
                    PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);
            Utility.setLastEnabled(lastEnabled,context); 

This will disable previously enabled activity alias

componentName = new ComponentName(
            "PACKAGE_NAME_HERE", prevLastEnabled);
    pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(componentName,
            PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_DISABLED,
            PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);

But as soon the app icon changes, my app closes without any exception. I have used dont kill app here, still it closes the app. Can anyone please suggest me if I am doing anything wrong.Thanks.

Answer 1

Your Activity is being closed probably because you have enabled/disabled your target Activity. Note that the App (Application Process) has not been killed. Anyways this is what I did to stop the Activity from closing:

In general you want to do the following:

1. Use just activity-aliases for icons
2. Remove the category "launcher" from the target Activity
3. Only enable/disable activity-aliases

Your AndroidManifest.xml should look something like this:

<activity android:name=".MainActivity" ... >
  <intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
  </intent-filter>
</activity>

<activity-alias android:name=".No-Icon-Badge"
                android:targetActivity=".MainActivity"
                android:enabled="true" 
                ... >
  <intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
  </intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

<activity-alias android:name=".Icon-Badge-1"
                android:targetActivity=".MainActivity"
                android:enabled="false" 
                ... >
  <intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
  </intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

<activity-alias android:name=".Icon-Badge-2"
                android:targetActivity=".MainActivity"
                android:enabled="false"
                ... >
  <intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
  </intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

...

So your MainActivity is enabled (keep it that way), but has no LAUNCHER category so it won't show up. Also the first activity-alias is enabled (this is your default) and all the other ones are disabled.

Good luck!