Multiple FileObserver on same file failed

Question

In my application, I have different components, which monitor the particular file in sdcard using FileObservers. So there are two instances of File Observer which observe a single file, say abc.xml for all events.

FileObserver fo1 = new FileObserver(new File("/sdcard/abc.xml"));
fo1.startWatching();
FileObserver fo2 = new FileObserver(new File("/sdcard/abc.xml"));
fo2.startWatching();

They both are registered for different events. My problem is when both of the file observers are watching in parallel, I am missing the calls to onEvent() of "fo1".

Is this a limitation of Android system? What are the ways to overcome this problem?

Answer 1

Late but maybe helpful for others: It's a bug in Android - the issue is reported here.

Since this was making me tear my hair out, I wrote a drop-in replacement for FileObserver which works around the issue by maintaining a master-list of FileObservers. Replacing all FileObservers in an application with this FixedFileObserver should result in the expected behaviour. (health warning: I did not test it very extensively in all corner cases but it works for me)

FixedFileObserver.java

package com.fimagena.filepicker.backend;

import android.os.FileObserver;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;


public abstract class FixedFileObserver {

    private final static HashMap<File, Set<FixedFileObserver>> sObserverLists = new HashMap<>();

    private FileObserver mObserver;
    private final File mRootPath;
    private final int mMask;

    public FixedFileObserver(String path) {this(path, FileObserver.ALL_EVENTS);}
    public FixedFileObserver(String path, int mask) {
        mRootPath = new File(path);
        mMask = mask;
    }

    public abstract void onEvent(int event, String path);

    public void startWatching() {
        synchronized (sObserverLists) {
            if (!sObserverLists.containsKey(mRootPath)) sObserverLists.put(mRootPath, new HashSet<FixedFileObserver>());

            final Set<FixedFileObserver> fixedObservers = sObserverLists.get(mRootPath);

            mObserver = fixedObservers.size() > 0 ? fixedObservers.iterator().next().mObserver : new FileObserver(mRootPath.getPath()) {
                @Override public void onEvent(int event, String path) {
                    for (FixedFileObserver fixedObserver : fixedObservers)
                        if ((event & fixedObserver.mMask) != 0) fixedObserver.onEvent(event, path);
                }};
            mObserver.startWatching();
            fixedObservers.add(this);
        }
    }

    public void stopWatching() {
        synchronized (sObserverLists) {
            Set<FixedFileObserver> fixedObservers = sObserverLists.get(mRootPath);
            if ((fixedObservers == null) || (mObserver == null)) return;

            fixedObservers.remove(this);
            if (fixedObservers.size() == 0) mObserver.stopWatching();

            mObserver = null;
        }
    }

    protected void finalize() {stopWatching();}
}