Question

In the AndroidManifest file of my application, the main Activity‘s android:name has always been:

android:name=".MainActivity"

Recently, I have changed the app to use a library. All the code has been transferred to the library project so that I can offer a free and a paid version, both using the same code (except to some modifications).

Now the name of the main Activity in the manifest file is:

android:name="com.name.library.MainActivity"

Unfortunately, users are reporting now that they cannot open the updated app anymore on their phone. Android says: App not installed!

After some searching, I found the cause for this problem here: You cannot change an Activity‘s name without causing problems for other apps trying to use Intents for this app. I guess the users who report the problem have placed my app on their home screen and the launcher application doesn’t find the old Activity name anymore. Is that true?

But does this also affect the menu with all apps listed? Actually, Android should update the Activity‘s name on update, shouldn’t it?

And how to resolve this problem? My only idea is to create a new Activity with the old name and in onCreate(...), place the following code:

Intent i = new Intent(MainActivity.this, MainActivity.class);
i.setComponentName("com.app.library", "com.app.library.MainActivity);
startActivity(i);

But this is not a pleasant solution, obviously …

Answer 1

I guess you could also use an activity-alias .

<activity-alias
        android:targetActivity="com.name.library.MainActivity"
        android:name=".MainActivity"
        android:label="@string/label"
        android:icon="@drawable/icon">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
    </intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

android:name should match the old activity name