Question

Last week I published app, this app contained just video links that allows the users to watch clips whenever they click any button link.

I am using this code to play video:

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); 
intent.setDataAndType(Uri.parse("http://www.yourvideo.mp4"), "video/mp4"); 
view.getContext().startActivity(intent); 

However, in some cases this code doesn’t work in several devices, some users of my app said it force closes the entire app whenever they press any link. I actually tried it on my Droid X, it worked perfectly fine.

Is there anything I am doing wrong? Please help me, I would really appreciate it a lot.

Here is the error I am getting.

    android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: No Activity found to handle Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW 
    dat=http://www.yourvideos.mp4 typ=video/mp4 }
    at android.app.Instrumentation.checkStartActivityResult(Instrumentation.java:1408)
    at android.app.Instrumentation.execStartActivity(Instrumentation.java:1378)
    at android.app.Activity.startActivityForResult(Activity.java:2817)
    at android.app.Activity.startActivity(Activity.java:2923)
    at com.MyApplication.desc182$1.onClick(desc182.java:34)
    at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:2408)
    at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:8816)
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:587)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:92)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:878)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:636)
    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

I had the exact same problem and never found a good reason why this happens. I ended up just catching ActivityNotFoundException and showing a dialog.

Here’s a way you can tell if there’s an activity that can handle a particular intent:

private boolean checkCanOpenVideoMP4Url(String videoUrl) {
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW); 
    intent.setDataAndType(Uri.parse(url), "video/mp4"); 

    List<ResolveInfo> resolveInfo = getPackageManager().queryIntentActivities(intent, 0);

    return (resolveInfo.size() > 0);
}

You can use this approach to see if the intent can be handled, and then message the user appropriately if there is no activity that can handle a particular intent.