830557 - java.lang.NullPointerException at com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodManager$Stub$Proxy.startInput(IInputMethodManager.java:359) startup crash during test

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

Bug 722166 has many test startup crashes reported against it. Most of those logs have no stacks reported, or stacks that only show system libs; other logs have Java exceptions which have not been noticed. Comment 1443 contains:

philor
https://tbpl.mozilla.org/php/getParsedLog.php?id=18718702&tree=Mozilla-Inbound
Android Tegra 250 mozilla-inbound opt test robocop on 2013-01-11 08:49:01
slave: tegra-313

and that log shows a Java exception:

01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): >>> REPORTING UNCAUGHT EXCEPTION FROM THREAD 1 ("main")
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): java.lang.NullPointerException
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodManager$Stub$Proxy.startInput(IInputMethodManager.java:359)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.view.inputmethod.InputMethodManager.startInputInner(InputMethodManager.java:979)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.view.inputmethod.InputMethodManager.checkFocus(InputMethodManager.java:1114)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.view.inputmethod.InputMethodManager.onWindowFocus(InputMethodManager.java:1143)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.view.ViewRoot.handleMessage(ViewRoot.java:1928)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:868)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:626)
01-11 08:58:44.838 E/GeckoAppShell( 2300): 	at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Comment 1

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

Bug 722166, comments 1437 and 1444 (and perhaps others) show very similar exceptions.

Comment 2

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

These also affect Talos: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=686245#c1297

Comment 3

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

These crashes continue to cause test failures. Recent example: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=722166#c1454

Comment 4

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

I believe this is an Android bug. According to [1], the line where the exception occurred is

> _result = com.android.internal.view.InputBindResult.CREATOR.createFromParcel(_reply);

and the only way to have a NullPointerException is if CREATOR is null, but CREATOR is a pre-initialized final field in InputBindResult. So I'm tempted to think it's a bug in Dalvik, unless we start seeing this on Android 4.0 tests.

[1] http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android/2.2.2_r1/com/android/internal/view/IInputMethodManager.java#359

Comment 5

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

The tegras are FRF91, or 2.2_r1.1, I believe...not sure if that makes any difference.

Comment 6

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

(In reply to Geoff Brown [:gbrown] from comment #5)
> The tegras are FRF91, or 2.2_r1.1, I believe...not sure if that makes any
> difference.

It doesn't.

Comment 7

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

The mobile platform team brainstormed approaches to resolving this bug. Ideas:
 - look at IInputMethodManager history to see if this bug was fixed in a future (after 2.2) Android version
 - use special handling in the uncaught exception handler to continue (likely not possible) or signal tbpl to treat this as an infra problem and automatically restart the failed test
 - patch / upgrade tegras

Also, this independent report was found: http://www.anddev.org/sdk-adt-emulator-problems-f16/strange-error-t53366.html. See also bug 782096.

Comment 8

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

Attachment: Fix startup crash by preloading class (v1)

We weren't able to test this patch on try, so I think we should just land it now and back out later if it doesn't fix the problem.

The theory is the class com.android.internal.view.InputBindResult is not being loaded correctly due to a bug in Dalvik. This patch preloads the class manually on start-up to avoid whatever condition that causes the bug. The fix targets Froyo and below only, so it's very low risk, and it otherwise has virtually no impact on start-up perf, etc.

Comment 9

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

Comment on attachment 709783 [details] [diff] [review]
Fix startup crash by preloading class (v1)

Review of attachment 709783 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for looking at this. I really hope it works!

nit/suggestion: Remove the "using froyo startup fix" logging and change the other log statements to be more explicit, like "froyo startup fix failed".

Comment 10

[(inactive) Jim Chen [:jchen] [:darchons]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/720ab0b8f566

Comment 11

[Geoff Brown [:gbrown]]

Most tbpl test logcats do not include app startup, but the ts results do:

02-04 12:41:24.750 I/GeckoApp( 4736): froyo startup fix: com.android.internal.view.InputBindResult$1@484fdde0

Looks good so far.

Comment 12

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/720ab0b8f566