Why does Android Account & Sync reboot when trying to find my settings activity?

Question

I have an activity that I can declare as Launcher category and it launches just fine from the home screen. However, when I try to hook-up the same activity into my SyncAdapter's settings activity and open it from the Accounts & Sync page -> MySyncAdapter -> (touch account listing) it aborts with a system fatal error (reboots phone).

Meanwhile, my SyncAdapter is working other respects.

Here is the log at point of impact:

01-13 12:31:00.976  5024  5038 I ActivityManager: Starting activity: Intent { act=android.provider.Settings.ACTION_SYNC_SETTINGS flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.myapp.android.syncadapter.ui/SyncAdapterSettingsActivity.class (has extras) }
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime: *** FATAL EXCEPTION IN SYSTEM PROCESS: android.server.ServerThread
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime: android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: Unable to find explicit activity class {com.myapp.android.syncadapter.ui/SyncAdapterSettingsActivity.class}; have you declared this activity in your AndroidManifest.xml?
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.app.Instrumentation.checkStartActivityResult(Instrumentation.java:1404)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.app.Instrumentation.execStartActivity(Instrumentation.java:1378)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.app.ContextImpl.startActivity(ContextImpl.java:622)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.preference.Preference.performClick(Preference.java:828)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.preference.PreferenceScreen.onItemClick(PreferenceScreen.java:190)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.AdapterView.performItemClick(AdapterView.java:284)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.ListView.performItemClick(ListView.java:3382)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.AbsListView$PerformClick.run(AbsListView.java:1696)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:587)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:92)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 E AndroidRuntime:    at com.android.server.ServerThread.run(SystemServer.java:517)
01-13 12:31:00.985  5024  5038 I Process : Sending signal. PID: 5024 SIG: 9
01-13 12:31:01.005  5019  5019 I Zygote  : Exit zygote because system server (5024) has terminated
01-13 12:31:01.015  1211  1211 E installd: eof

Here is a snippet from my manifest file:

   <activity android:name="com.myapp.android.syncadapter.ui.SyncAdapterSettingsActivity"
              android:label="@string/title_settings" 
              android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysHidden|adjustPan">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
            <action android:name="android.provider.Settings.ACTION_SYNC_SETTINGS"/>
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>

I forgot about the XML resource file (account_preferences.xml) that is referenced. It provides another level of indirection-reference to the activity's name. I can manipulate it to get the log entry to change accordingly. So, I think that is a hint to the solution. The target package and target class get concatenated together to define the name of the activity to start. What I noticed in the log is that there is a slash (/) in the path name and I think that is why it is unable to find the activity. For example, if I take the (.ui) out of the package and put it in the target-activity, then the slash moves to be before the .ui in the path.

account_preferences.xml:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PreferenceScreen
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <PreferenceCategory android:title="@string/format_auth_preferences" />
    <PreferenceScreen
         android:key="key_syncadapter_auth"
         android:title="@string/key_syncadapter_auth_action"
         android:summary="@string/key_syncadapter_auth_summary">
         <intent
             android:action="android.provider.Settings.ACTION_SYNC_SETTINGS"
             android:targetPackage="com.myapp.android.syncadapter.ui"
             android:targetClass=".SyncAdapterSettingsActivity" />
     </PreferenceScreen>
 </PreferenceScreen>

log snippet:

01-14 14:34:34.270 E/AndroidRuntime( 6374): *** FATAL EXCEPTION IN SYSTEM PROCESS: android.server.ServerThread
01-14 14:34:34.270 E/AndroidRuntime( 6374): android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: Unable to find explicit activity class {com.myapp.android.syncadapter.ui/.SyncAdapterSettingsActivity}; have you declared this activity in your AndroidManifest.xml?

Answer 1

I got it! Basically, the package is the root package and the target class is the fully qualified name.

     <intent
         android:action="android.provider.Settings.ACTION_SYNC_SETTINGS"
         android:targetPackage="com.myapp.android.syncadapter"
         android:targetClass="com.myapp.android.syncadapter.ui.SyncAdapterSettingsActivity" />

I also had to carefully check my AndroidManifest to be certain that the values were correctly spelled so they could match and that I had an intent-filter that was meaningful for the activity to respond to.

Now I have to implement the settings config activity and format the result in an Intent correctly. I sense another question coming from me :)