Question

I am getting a NullPointerException at SuggestionSpan. (Stack trace included below). As the stack trace does not include any of my code, I have absolutely no idea where to start debugging.

The error can be reproduced whenever I press space (or select a word) while using an EditText. I tried multiple keyboards including the stock Android one but the same error appears.

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
java.lang.NullPointerException
at android.text.style.SuggestionSpan.<init>(SuggestionSpan.java:128)
at android.text.style.SuggestionSpan.<init>(SuggestionSpan.java:101)
at android.widget.SpellChecker.createMisspelledSuggestionSpan(SpellChecker.java:392)
at android.widget.SpellChecker.onGetSuggestions(SpellChecker.java:300)
at android.view.textservice.SpellCheckerSession.handleOnGetSuggestionsMultiple(SpellCheckerSession.java:198)
at android.view.textservice.SpellCheckerSession.access$000(SpellCheckerSession.java:86)
at android.view.textservice.SpellCheckerSession$1.handleMessage(SpellCheckerSession.java:112)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4424)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:784)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:551)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

EDIT: I can only reproduce the error on my Nexus S with 4.0.3, but not on emulators with other OS versions. Weird.

EDIT 2: Strange thing happened! I just dragged an EditText into another activity and the same thing happens. No code is attached to it nor any XML changes made to it.

Answer 1

After days of investigation, it turns out that getResources().getConfiguration().locale is null. I am not sure if it is a problem specific to some versions of Android / some devices (mine is Nexus S running 4.0.3).

But I worked around this issue by checking in the constructor of the Activity (since the context given to the SuggestionSpan is my Activity) whether the locale is null, and then set it to the default one if it is.

    // to prevent a weird bug where locale is null
    Configuration config = getResources().getConfiguration();
    if (config.locale == null)
        config.locale = Locale.getDefault();

That’s what I did. I am quite sure it’s not the best way though. Anyone have any more ideas?