SharedPreferences.getBoolean returns true for default value

Question

For some reason, this returns true every time for the default value. I uninstalled my app and re-installed and i do the following to initialize the values. But for some reason the boolean is set to true instead of false.

    SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(LoadingActivity.this);
    final int locationType = prefs.getInt(Constants.PREFS_LOCATION, 0);
    final boolean skipWhatsNew = prefs.getBoolean(Constants.PREFS_DONT_SHOW_WHATS_NEW, false);

    Log.v("loading activity : " , " " + skipWhatsNew);

I'm not really sure why its doing this since it used to just set the value to false before.

I already looked at similar questions but none of them helped, so any help would be nice, thanks.

Questions that i have looked at already,

Android - SharedPreference.getBoolean retrieving false even if i am storing true?

SharedPreferences.getBoolean returns true everytime

The above code is also the first time i access this, and from what i understand, it should set to false since it is being created for the first time. (first answer on this question mentions this, unless I'm wrong)

android default values for shared preferences

Answer 1

To fix, I put this in my AndroidManifest:

<application
    android:allowBackup="false"
    ...>

See: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/backup.html

Answer 2

I was not able to figure out why it is returning true as the default.

So the only solution i found was the change the string in the first parameter of

getBoolean(Constants.PREFS_DONT_SHOW_WHATS_NEW, false);

I pretty much changed this string by one character, ie "string" to "string_"

Now it returns the default value of false. I have then tested the preference by changing it to true in other sections of my app and then restarting the app and it is still true. I then un-install the app and it is reset back to false as its default whenever i do the above code.

Don't know why this has happened. If anyone has any idea, please let me know.

Thanks