How to catch an Exception (ActivityNotFoundException) while using LinkMovementMethod

Question

I have currently a TextView with some HTML phone numbers and url.

I have noticed that we can use the setMovementMethod to make these links clickable:

tv.setText("Phone number is: +32485123456 and url is http://www.blabla.com");
tv.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

This works pretty well, but on some devices, it crash with ActivityNotFoundException and that is quite understanble. (see code below)

These problems appear in my developer console and I cannot reproduce them.

The big problem I am facing is that I cannot try/catch code in my activity as the click is handled by LinkMovementMethod

Any idea on how I can avoid such errors?

android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: No Activity found to handle Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW dat=www.vlaamsbrabant.be/zoutleeuw (has extras) }
    at android.app.Instrumentation.checkStartActivityResult(Instrumentation.java:1408)
    at android.app.Instrumentation.execStartActivity(Instrumentation.java:1378)
    at android.app.Activity.startActivityForResult(Activity.java:2817)
    at android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity.startActivityForResult(FragmentActivity.java:817)
    at android.app.Activity.startActivity(Activity.java:2923)
    at android.text.style.URLSpan.onClick(URLSpan.java:62)
    at android.text.method.LinkMovementMethod.onTouchEvent(LinkMovementMethod.java:216)
    at android.widget.TextView.onTouchEvent(TextView.java:6788)
    at android.view.View.dispatchTouchEvent(View.java:3766)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:936)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:936)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:936)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:936)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:936)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:936)
    at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView.superDispatchTouchEvent(PhoneWindow.java:1896)
    at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.superDispatchTouchEvent(PhoneWindow.java:1159)
    at android.app.Activity.dispatchTouchEvent(Activity.java:2086)
    at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow$DecorView.dispatchTouchEvent(PhoneWindow.java:1880)
    at android.view.ViewRoot.handleMessage(ViewRoot.java:1811)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:858)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616)
    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

You can always just extend LinkMovementMethod and catch the error there.

Something like:

private class MovementCheck extends LinkMovementMethod {

    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent( TextView widget, Spannable buffer, MotionEvent event ) {
        try {
            return super.onTouchEvent( widget, buffer, event ) ;
        } catch( Exception ex ) {
            Toast.makeText( MainActivity.this, "Could not load link", Toast.LENGTH_LONG ).show();
            return true;
        }
    }

}

Will display an error message in the case that there is no application setup to handle the intent.

Another option is to use the method in this question to determine ahead of time if anything is prepared to handle your links.