Question

I am trying to figure out how to have a progress bar that says “Loading. Please Wait…” while my media player prepares a streaming file. What occurs now is that it displays after the song is prepared. how can i fix this?

        mediaPlayerLoadingBar =ProgressDialog.show(PlaylistActivity.this, "", "Loading. Please wait...", true);         
                    /*dubstep stream*/
                    try {
                        dubstepMediaPlayer.setDataSource(dubstepPlaylistString[0]);
                        dubstepMediaPlayer.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
                        dubstepMediaPlayer.prepare();

                    } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    } catch (SecurityException e) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    } catch (IOException e) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }


                    dubstepMediaPlayer.start();
                    if(dubstepMediaPlayer.isPlaying()){
                        mediaPlayerLoadingBar.dismiss();
                    }`

EDIT:
This is the code I have now:

`switch(pSelection){
case 1:

                    new AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>(){

                    @Override
                    protected void onPreExecute(){
                        mediaPlayerLoadingBar =ProgressDialog.show(PlaylistActivity.this, "", "Loading. Please wait...", true);
                        try {
                            dubstepMediaPlayer.setDataSource(dubstepPlaylistString[0]);
                        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
                            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                            e.printStackTrace();
                        } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
                            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                            e.printStackTrace();
                        } catch (IOException e) {
                            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                            e.printStackTrace();
                        }
                        dubstepMediaPlayer.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
                    }

                    @Override
                    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
                        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                        //mediaPlayerLoadingBar =ProgressDialog.show(PlaylistActivity.this, "", "Loading. Please wait...", true);
                        return null;
                    }

                    protected void onPostExecute(Void result){
                        //mediaPlayerLoadingBar =ProgressDialog.show(PlaylistActivity.this, "", "Loading. Please wait...", true)
                            dubstepMediaPlayer.prepareAsync();
                        dubstepMediaPlayer.start();
                        mediaPlayerLoadingBar.dismiss();

                }

                }.execute();`

Answer 1

The issue lies in that you are not doing anything asynchronously here, and you should be. You should use an AsyncTask to do your work.

Take a look at ‘the 4 steps’, as detailed here:

The 4 steps

When an asynchronous task is executed, the task goes through 4 steps:

1. onPreExecute(), invoked on the UI thread immediately after the task is executed. This step is normally used to setup the task, for
   instance by showing a progress bar in the user interface.
2. doInBackground(Params…), invoked on the background thread immediately after onPreExecute() finishes executing. This step is used
   to perform background computation that can take a long time. The
   parameters of the asynchronous task are passed to this step. The
   result of the computation must be returned by this step and will be
   passed back to the last step. This step can also use
   publishProgress(Progress…) to publish one or more units of progress.
   These values are published on the UI thread, in the
   onProgressUpdate(Progress…) step.
3. onProgressUpdate(Progress…), invoked on the UI thread after a call to publishProgress(Progress…). The timing of the execution is
   undefined. This method is used to display any form of progress in the
   user interface while the background computation is still executing.
   For instance, it can be used to animate a progress bar or show logs in
   a text field.
4. onPostExecute(Result), invoked on the UI thread after the background computation finishes. The result of the background
   computation is passed to this step as a parameter.

EDIT:

You can create an anonymous inner class to do your bidding, which may be similar to how you are creating your onClick handler. In your onClick do something like this:

//pseudo-code...
onClick(View v, ...) {
    new AsyncTask<Generic1, Generic2, Generic3>() {
        protected void onPreExecute() {
            // do pre execute stuff...
        }

        protected Generic3 doInBackground(Generic1... params) {
            // do background stuff...
        }

        protected void onPostExecute(Generic3 result) {
            // do post execute stuff...
        }
    }.execute();
}

Don’t forget to keep an eye on your generics here!