Intent started in onCreate called multiple times

Issue

I am making an app that uses the camera and I would like the default camera open as soon as the app is opened. I currently start my image capture intent in the onCreate method of my main activity. This works perfectly fine sometimes, but other times the camera intent is launched 3 consecutive times.

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        mImageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView1);
        mImageBitmap = null;

        Button picBtn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.pictureButton);
        setBtnListenerOrDisable(
                picBtn,
                mTakePicOnClickListener,
                MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE
        );

        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.FROYO) {
            mAlbumStorageDirFactory = new FroyoAlbumDirFactory();
        } else {
            mAlbumStorageDirFactory = new BaseAlbumDirFactory();
        }
        dispatchTakePictureIntent(ACTION_TAKE_PHOTO_B);
    }

private void dispatchTakePictureIntent(int actionCode) {

        Intent takePictureIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
        File f;
        try {
            f = setUpPhotoFile();
            mCurrentPhotoPath = f.getAbsolutePath();
            takePictureIntent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, Uri.fromFile(f));
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            mCurrentPhotoPath = null;
        }

        startActivityForResult(takePictureIntent, actionCode);
    }

 protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
        if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
            handleBigCameraPhoto();
        }
    }

private void handleBigCameraPhoto() {

        if (mCurrentPhotoPath != null) {
            setPic();
            galleryAddPic();
            lastPhotoPath = mCurrentPhotoPath;
            mCurrentPhotoPath = null;
        }

    }

 private void setPic() {

        /* There isn't enough memory to open up more than a couple camera photos */
        /* So pre-scale the target bitmap into which the file is decoded */

        /* Get the size of the ImageView */
        int targetW = mImageView.getWidth();
        int targetH = mImageView.getHeight();

        /* Get the size of the image */
        BitmapFactory.Options bmOptions = new BitmapFactory.Options();
        bmOptions.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
        BitmapFactory.decodeFile(mCurrentPhotoPath, bmOptions);
        int photoW = bmOptions.outWidth;
        int photoH = bmOptions.outHeight;

        /* Figure out which way needs to be reduced less */
        int scaleFactor = 1;
        if ((targetW > 0) || (targetH > 0)) {
            scaleFactor = Math.min(photoW / targetW, photoH / targetH);
        }

        /* Set bitmap options to scale the image decode target */
        bmOptions.inJustDecodeBounds = false;
        bmOptions.inSampleSize = scaleFactor;
        bmOptions.inPurgeable = true;

        /* Decode the JPEG file into a Bitmap */
        Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(mCurrentPhotoPath, bmOptions);

        /* Associate the Bitmap to the ImageView */
        mImageView.setImageBitmap(bitmap);
        mImageView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
    }

Solution

I think Nathaniel is giving you good advice to move your camera intent launching into onResume.

However, you'll need to differentiate between an onResume that is your activity starting for the first time from one that is happening because of your activity resuming after the camera intent is finished. If you dont, you'll get the loop you see.

To do this, you can alter your onActivityResult() to set a member variable in your Activity called something like isResumingFromCaptureIntent. Set it to true in onActivityResult when the resultCode matches what you used to start the camera intent. Then, in your onResume, check isResumingFromCaptureIntent, if true you know you dont need to start the camera intent and can set is back to false and proceed with whatever else your activity needs to do.

Answered By - mmeyer