savedInstanceState is not being restored

Issue

I am just starting out with Android and I faced the following issue:

I am trying to saveInstanceState when the new Activity is opened, and I need to restore that state when Activity is back to Visible state.

Here is my onSaveInstanceState method

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
    super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
    outState.putParcelableArrayList("movies", (ArrayList<Movie>) movies);

    Log.v("onSaveInstanceState ", "SAVING STATE");
    Log.v("Saving State", outState.toString());
}

This is my onCreate method that should restore the previously saved instance state

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    if (savedInstanceState != null){
        Log.v("onCreate ", "EXISTING STATE");
        this.movies = savedInstanceState.getParcelableArrayList("movies");
    }else{
        Log.v("onCreate ", "EMPTY STATE");
    }

    setHasOptionsMenu(true);
}

If you notice, in the onSaveInstanceState method, after I saved the instance I do toString() on the saved instance and it displays me the full instance with the values I saved. However when I am restoring the instance the savedInstanceState variable comes as null.

I am using an Array of custom objects where each object implements Parcelable.

Below is the class:

public class Movie implements Parcelable {
private String title;
private String path;
private String overview;
private String releaseDate;
private double vote;

public Movie(String title, String overview, double vote, String releaseDate, String path) {
    this.title = title;
    this.overview = overview;
    this.vote = vote;
    this.releaseDate = releaseDate;
    this.path = path;
}

public String getTitle() {
    return title;
}

public String getPath() {
    return path;
}

public String getOverview() {
    return overview;
}

public String getReleaseDate() {
    return releaseDate;
}

public double getVote() {
    return vote;
}

protected Movie(Parcel source){
    this.title = source.readString();
    this.path = source.readString();
    this.overview = source.readString();
    this.releaseDate = source.readString();
    this.vote = source.readDouble();

}

public static final Creator<Movie> CREATOR = new Creator<Movie>() {
    @Override
    public Movie createFromParcel(Parcel source) {
        return new Movie(source);
    }

    @Override
    public Movie[] newArray(int size) {
        return new Movie[size];
    }
};

@Override
public int describeContents() {
    return 0;
}

@Override
public void writeToParcel(Parcel dest, int flags) {
    dest.writeString(title);
    dest.writeSerializable(path);
    dest.writeString(overview);
    dest.writeString(releaseDate);
    dest.writeDouble(vote);
}

@Override
public String toString() {
    return "Movie{" +
            "title='" + title + '\'' +
            ", path='" + path + '\'' +
            ", overview='" + overview + '\'' +
            ", releaseDate='" + releaseDate + '\'' +
            ", vote=" + vote +
            '}';
}

}

I feel like I am saving it in the wrong way somehow. I followed the tutorial on how to do that. Please let me know what I am doing wrong. Thank you

Solution

My problem was resolved by adding to the MainActivity in the manifest file.

android:launchMode="singleTop"

There were multiple instances of Activity created, therefore instance would no be saved.

Answered By - Jenny