Bad notification posted from package Couldn't expand RemoteViews

Question

I have a problem. Some times my service is forcefully closed with this logcat:

03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080): android.app.RemoteServiceException: Bad notification posted from package by.flipdev.vkspy: Couldn't expand RemoteViews for: StatusBarNotification(pkg=by.flipdev.vkspy id=1 tag=null score=0 notn=Notification(pri=0 contentView=by.flipdev.vkspy/0x1090071 vibrate=null sound=null defaults=0x0 flags=0x2 kind=[null]))
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1374)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4931)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:791)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:558)
03-26 20:44:44.849: E/AndroidRuntime(12080):    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

This is my code to add add notifications:

protected void addNotification(final Bitmap Avatar,
        final int small_Image_ID, final int notify_id, final String text,
        final String title, final Boolean ongoing, final Boolean ticker,
        final String tickerText, final Boolean autoCancel,
        final String notificationCategory, final int notificationValue) {

    try {

        final Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(
                getApplicationContext(), CheckerActivity.class);

        notificationIntent
                .putExtra(notificationCategory, notificationValue);
        notificationIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP
                | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);

        final PendingIntent contentIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(
                getApplicationContext(), notify_id, notificationIntent,
                PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

        final NotificationManager nm = (NotificationManager) context
                .getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);


        final NotificationCompat.Builder builder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(
                context);
        if (Ticker) {
            builder.setContentIntent(contentIntent)
                    .setSmallIcon(small_Image_ID)
                    .setOngoing(ongoing)                    
                    .setLargeIcon(Avatar).setTicker(tickerText)                     
                    .setWhen(System.currentTimeMillis())
                    .setAutoCancel(AutoCancel).setContentTitle(title)
                    .setContentText(text); // Текст уведомления
        } else {
            builder.setContentIntent(contentIntent)
                    .setSmallIcon(small_Image_ID)
                    .setLargeIcon(avatar)                       
                    .setOngoing(ongoing)
                    .setWhen(System.currentTimeMillis())
                    .setAutoCancel(AutoCancel).setContentTitle(title) 
                    .setContentText(text); // Текст уведомления
        }

        final Notification n = builder.getNotification();

        nm.notify(notify_id, n);

    } catch (final Exception e) {
                    // TODO: add exception handling code
    }
}

Why is my service killed?

Answer 1

Apart from recommended Layouts and Widgets by Google https://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/RemoteViews

Check you layout.xml file and if you using android:tint property remove it. Because RemoteViews do not accept layout.xml with android:tint

Answer 2

This issue is a result of missing or null resources. Looking at your code, I infer that, possible error seems to be on Ticker (always false) and setLargeIcon(avatar)( avatar is always null).

Could you post all your service implementations?

P.S. Please try to respect java's naming convention; Ticker,Avatar,AutoCancel and other objects should start with lower case.

Answer 3

Well, in my case, I was getting this exact same error because I referred to a style definition for a TextView in my custom notification layout that had an entry for an onClick target method. Specifically:

<item name="android:onClick">onClick</item>

Once I removed that line, the problem went away. An oversight on my part, but a good reminder not to blindly reuse styles.

Answer 4

I noticed this happening on 3.0 emulators, when I set the Large Icon.

So, since the Large Icon is only used by 4.0+ devices, I solved this issue by checking if the Build version is > 13. If so (and only if so), I set the Large icon.

The problem has gone.