Error inflating class PreferenceScreen inside my 'settings' fragment

Question

I've been trying to get this code working for quite sometime now, I followed a tutorial to integrate a bottom navigation view using fragments into my application. That worked fine but once I set up a preferencescreen for my settings fragment the application immediately crashes on selecting it. I believe I may have misunderstood how to inflate the preferencescreen but have no idea on how to go about doing that as some methods have been deprecated.

Here is the res/xml/fragment_settings.xml

<PreferenceCategory
    android:title="Category 1">

    <SwitchPreferenceCompat
        android:key="key1"
        android:title="Switch Preference"
        android:summary="Switch Summary"
        android:defaultValue="true" />

    <EditTextPreference
        android:key="key2"
        android:title="EditText Preference"
        android:summary="EditText Summary"
        android:dialogMessage="Dialog Message"
        android:defaultValue="Default value" />
    <CheckBoxPreference
        android:key="key3"
        android:title="CheckBox Preference"
        android:summary="CheckBox Summary"
        android:defaultValue="true"/>
</PreferenceCategory>

Here is what the SettingsFragment Java Activity File looks like:

package com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1;

import android.annotation.SuppressLint;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;

import androidx.annotation.NonNull;
import androidx.annotation.Nullable;
import androidx.fragment.app.Fragment;
import androidx.preference.PreferenceManager;

public class SettingsFragment extends Fragment {

    @SuppressLint("ResourceType")
    @Nullable
    @Override
    public View onCreateView(@NonNull LayoutInflater inflater, @Nullable ViewGroup container, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        return inflater.inflate(R.xml.fragment_settings, container, false);

    }
}

This is the error I receive:

E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1, PID: 11016
android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #1 in com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1:xml/fragment_settings: Binary XML file line #1 in com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1:xml/fragment_settings: Error inflating class PreferenceScreen
Caused by: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #1 in com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1:xml/fragment_settings: Error inflating class PreferenceScreen
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: android.view.PreferenceScreen
    at java.lang.Class.classForName(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:454)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:815)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:776)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:913)
    at com.android.internal.policy.PhoneLayoutInflater.onCreateView(PhoneLayoutInflater.java:68)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:930)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:950)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:1004)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:961)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:659)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:534)
    at com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1.SettingsFragment.onCreateView(SettingsFragment.java:20)
    at androidx.fragment.app.Fragment.performCreateView(Fragment.java:2698)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentStateManager.createView(FragmentStateManager.java:320)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1187)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1356)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveFragmentToExpectedState(FragmentManager.java:1434)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1497)
    at androidx.fragment.app.BackStackRecord.executeOps(BackStackRecord.java:447)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.executeOps(FragmentManager.java:2169)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.executeOpsTogether(FragmentManager.java:1992)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.removeRedundantOperationsAndExecute(FragmentManager.java:1947)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.execPendingActions(FragmentManager.java:1849)
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager$4.run(FragmentManager.java:413)
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:883)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:100)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:214)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7356)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:492)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:930)
 Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Didn't find class "android.view.PreferenceScreen" on path: DexPathList[[zip file "/data/app/com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1-5rs7Qpv6NmVeBQNlRb7Frg==/base.apk"],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1-5rs7Qpv6NmVeBQNlRb7Frg==/lib/x86, /system/lib, /system/product/lib]]
    at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:196)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:379)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:312)
    at java.lang.Class.classForName(Native Method) 
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:454) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:815) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:776) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:913) 
    at com.android.internal.policy.PhoneLayoutInflater.onCreateView(PhoneLayoutInflater.java:68) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:930) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:950) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:1004) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:961) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:659) 
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:534) 
    at com.example.managinghealthapplicationv1.SettingsFragment.onCreateView(SettingsFragment.java:20) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.Fragment.performCreateView(Fragment.java:2698) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentStateManager.createView(FragmentStateManager.java:320) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1187) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1356) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveFragmentToExpectedState(FragmentManager.java:1434) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1497) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.BackStackRecord.executeOps(BackStackRecord.java:447) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.executeOps(FragmentManager.java:2169) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.executeOpsTogether(FragmentManager.java:1992) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.removeRedundantOperationsAndExecute(FragmentManager.java:1947) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager.execPendingActions(FragmentManager.java:1849) 
    at androidx.fragment.app.FragmentManager$4.run(FragmentManager.java:413) 
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:883) 
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:100) 
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:214) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7356) 
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method) 
    at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:492) 
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:930) 

Much help would be appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

As per the Settings documentation, you need to use PreferenceFragmentCompat from the Preferences library and setPreferencesFromResource():

public class SettingsFragment extends PreferenceFragmentCompat {
    @Override
    public void onCreatePreferences(Bundle savedInstanceState, String rootKey) {
        setPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.fragment_settings, rootKey);
    }
}

The reason you needed to add @SuppressLint("ResourceType") to your code is that preference XML files are specifically not layout XML files. Hence why it doesn't work with onCreateView() and why setPreferencesFromResource exists.