androidandroid-activitygarbage-collectioninputmethodmanager

Main Activity is not garbage collected after destruction because it is referenced by InputMethodManager indirectly


I followed "Avoiding Memory Leaks" article from here.

However the proposed solution does not solve the leak problem. I tested this with android emulator on Windows XP (SDK 2.3.1). I dumped the heap and checked the main activity is still in the heap (I used MAT)

Here's what I did:

  1. create HelloWorld app with HelloWorldActivity (it has no child views)
  2. run Emulator and launch HelloWorld app.
  3. close it by clicking back-key.
  4. Cause gc in DDMS and dump heap <-- Here I found HelloWorldActivity instance.
  5. 'Path to GC Roots' from it shows the following path.

HelloWorldActivity <- PhoneWindow$DecorView <- InputMethodManager

InputMethodManager is a singleton and three references to DecorView which references HelloWorldActivity.

I can't understand why InputMethodManager still references DecorView instance even after the activity is destroyed.

Is there any way to make sure that the main activity is destroyed and GC-able after closing it?


Solution

  • It seems that calling InputMethodManager's methods 'windowDismissed' and 'startGettingWindowFocus' do the stuff.

    Something like this:

    @Override
    protected void onDestroy()
    {
        super.onDestroy();
        //fix for memory leak: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=34731
        fixInputMethodManager();
    }
    
    private void fixInputMethodManager()
    {
        final Object imm = getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
    
        final Reflector.TypedObject windowToken
            = new Reflector.TypedObject(getWindow().getDecorView().getWindowToken(), IBinder.class);
    
        Reflector.invokeMethodExceptionSafe(imm, "windowDismissed", windowToken);
    
        final Reflector.TypedObject view
            = new Reflector.TypedObject(null, View.class);
    
        Reflector.invokeMethodExceptionSafe(imm, "startGettingWindowFocus", view);
    }
    

    Reflector's code:

    public static final class TypedObject
    {
        private final Object object;
        private final Class type;
    
        public TypedObject(final Object object, final Class type)
        {
        this.object = object;
        this.type = type;
        }
    
        Object getObject()
        {
            return object;
        }
    
        Class getType()
        {
            return type;
        }
    }
    
    public static void invokeMethodExceptionSafe(final Object methodOwner, final String method, final TypedObject... arguments)
    {
        if (null == methodOwner)
        {
            return;
        }
    
        try
        {
            final Class<?>[] types = null == arguments ? new Class[0] : new Class[arguments.length];
            final Object[] objects = null == arguments ? new Object[0] : new Object[arguments.length];
    
            if (null != arguments)
            {
                for (int i = 0, limit = types.length; i < limit; i++)
                {
                    types[i] = arguments[i].getType();
                    objects[i] = arguments[i].getObject();
                }
            }
    
            final Method declaredMethod = methodOwner.getClass().getDeclaredMethod(method, types);
    
            declaredMethod.setAccessible(true);
            declaredMethod.invoke(methodOwner, objects);
        }
        catch (final Throwable ignored)
        {
        }
    }