My app is getting an android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #1: Error inflating class fragment

Question

I'm creating an app that present the user a list of movies in a Gridview. I'm using API from themoviedb.org. When I run my app it doesn't start at all and I'm getting this error in LogCat. Could you please explain how to fix this issue:

07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb/com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb.MainActivity}: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #1: Error inflating class fragment
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2693)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2758)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$900(ActivityThread.java:177)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1448)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:145)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5942)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1400)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1195)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898): Caused by: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #1: Error inflating class fragment
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:770)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:483)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:415)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:366)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV7.setContentView(AppCompatDelegateImplV7.java:249)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity.setContentView(AppCompatActivity.java:106)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb.MainActivity.onCreate(MainActivity.java:15)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:6289)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1119)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2646)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    ... 10 more
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to get length of null array
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at java.util.Collections.addAll(Collections.java:2582)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb.MainActivityFragment$MovieAdapter.<init>(MainActivityFragment.java:171)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb.MainActivityFragment.onCreateView(MainActivityFragment.java:48)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.app.Fragment.performCreateView(Fragment.java:1789)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:924)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1116)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.addFragment(FragmentManager.java:1218)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.onCreateView(FragmentManager.java:2170)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity.onCreateView(FragmentActivity.java:300)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV7.callActivityOnCreateView(AppCompatDelegateImplV7.java:838)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV11.callActivityOnCreateView(AppCompatDelegateImplV11.java:34)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV7.onCreateView(AppCompatDelegateImplV7.java:826)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.support.v4.view.LayoutInflaterCompatHC$FactoryWrapperHC.onCreateView(LayoutInflaterCompatHC.java:44)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:732)
07-13 21:50:56.954: E/AndroidRuntime(25898):    ... 19 more
07-13 21:50:56.954: V/ApplicationPolicy(864): isApplicationStateBlocked userId 0 pkgname com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb
07-13 21:50:56.954: W/ActivityManager(864):   Force finishing activity com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb/.MainActivity
07-13 21:50:56.954: D/FocusedStackFrame(864): Set to : 0
07-13 21:50:56.964: I/Process(25898): Sending signal. PID: 25898 SIG: 9

Here's my code:

MainActivityFragment

package com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb;

import android.content.Context;
import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuInflater;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
import android.widget.GridView;
import android.widget.ImageView;

import com.squareup.picasso.Picasso;

import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

public class MainActivityFragment extends Fragment {
    //ArrayAdapter<String> mMovieAdapter;
    String[] movieId,movieTitle,movieOverview,movieReleaseDate,moviePosterPath,movieVoteAverage;
    public MainActivityFragment() {
    }

    MovieAdapter mMovieAdapter;

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                             Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_main, container, false);

        mMovieAdapter = new MovieAdapter(getActivity());
        GridView listView = (GridView) rootView.findViewById(R.id.gridview_movie);
        listView.setAdapter(mMovieAdapter);
        updateMovie();
        return rootView;
    }

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setHasOptionsMenu(true);
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu, MenuInflater inflater) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        inflater.inflate(R.menu.mainactivityfragment, menu);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        int id = item.getItemId();
        if (id == R.id.action_refresh) {
            updateMovie();
            return true;
        }
        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }

    private void updateMovie() {
        FetchMovieTask movieTask = new FetchMovieTask();
        movieTask.execute();
    }

    class FetchMovieTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, List<String>> {
        private final String LOG_TAG = FetchMovieTask.class.getSimpleName();

        @Override
        protected List<String> doInBackground(Void... params) {
            HttpURLConnection urlConnection = null;
            BufferedReader reader = null;

            // Will contain the raw JSON response as a string.
            String movieJsonStr = null;

            try {
                URL url = new URL("http://api.themoviedb.org/3/discover/movie?sort_by=popularity.desc&api_key=InsertAPIKeyHere");

                urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
                urlConnection.setRequestMethod("GET");
                urlConnection.connect();

                // Read the input stream into a String
                InputStream inputStream = urlConnection.getInputStream();
                StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
                if (inputStream == null) {
                    // Nothing to do.
                    return null;
                }
                reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));

                String line;
                while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {

                    buffer.append(line + "\n");
                }

                if (buffer.length() == 0) {
                    // Stream was empty.  No point in parsing.
                    return null;
                }
                movieJsonStr = buffer.toString();

            } catch (IOException e) {
                Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error ", e);
                return null;
            } finally {
                if (urlConnection != null) {
                    urlConnection.disconnect();
                }
                if (reader != null) {
                    try {
                        reader.close();
                    } catch (final IOException e) {
                        Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error closing stream", e);
                    }
                }
            }
            try {
                return getMovieDataFromJson(movieJsonStr);
            } catch (JSONException j) {
                Log.e(LOG_TAG, "JSON Error", j);
            }
            return null;
        }

        private List<String> getMovieDataFromJson(String forecastJsonStr)
                throws JSONException {
            JSONObject movieJson = new JSONObject(forecastJsonStr);
            JSONArray movieArray = movieJson.getJSONArray("results");
            List<String> urls = new ArrayList<>();
            for (int i = 0; i < movieArray.length(); i++) {
                JSONObject movie = movieArray.getJSONObject(i);
                urls.add("http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w185" + movie.getString("poster_path"));
            }
            return urls;
        }




        @Override
        protected void onPostExecute(List<String> strings) {
            mMovieAdapter.replace(strings);
        }
    }

    class MovieAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
        private final String LOG_TAG = MovieAdapter.class.getSimpleName();
        private final Context context;
        private final List<String> urls = new ArrayList<String>();

        public MovieAdapter(Context context) {
            this.context = context;
            Collections.addAll(urls, moviePosterPath);
        }

        @Override
        public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
            if (convertView == null) {
                convertView = new ImageView(context);
            }
            ImageView imageView = (ImageView) convertView;


            String url = getItem(position);

            Log.e(LOG_TAG, " URL " + url);

            Picasso.with(context).load(url).into(imageView);

            return convertView;
        }

        @Override
        public int getCount() {
            return urls.size();
        }

        @Override
        public String getItem(int position) {
            return urls.get(position);
        }

        @Override
        public long getItemId(int position) {
            return position;
        }
        public void replace(List<String> urls) {
            this.urls.clear();
            this.urls.addAll(urls);
            notifyDataSetChanged();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

The problem is moviePosterPath. Maybe you can initialize this with empty array. Example: String[] movePosterPath = new String[0];

Answer 2

Pretty basic Android debugging stuff. Read down the chain of "Caused by:" exceptions in the log file.

The line of interest in the exception log is:

idRuntime(25898): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to get length of null array

If you scan down the callstack at the point this exception occured you will see:

E/AndroidRuntime(25898): at com.projmobileapp.pmdbadd.pmdb.MainActivityFragment$MovieAdapter.(MainActivityFragment.java:171)

For some reason, the FetchMovieTask AsyncTask has returned a null result from the background operation. You have then passed the null result as an argument to the call to mMovieAdapter.replace(strings); The strings argument is null; it should be an instance of ArrayList.

Set some breakpoints in FetchMovieTask.doInBackground and debug through that routine to see where things go wrong.