java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: bitmap size exceeds VM

Question

I am trying to change the layout of my application from portrait to landscape and vice-versa. But if i do it frequently or more than once then at times my application crashes.. Below is the error log. Please suggest what can be done?

 01-06 09:52:27.787: ERROR/dalvikvm-heap(17473): 1550532-byte external allocation too large for this process. 01-06 09:52:27.787: ERROR/dalvikvm(17473): Out of memory: Heap Size=6471KB, Allocated=4075KB, Bitmap Size=9564KB 
 01-06 09:52:27.787: ERROR/(17473): VM won't let us allocate 1550532 bytes 
 01-06 09:52:27.798: DEBUG/skia(17473): --- decoder->decode returned false
 01-06 09:52:27.798: DEBUG/AndroidRuntime(17473): Shutting down VM
 01-06 09:52:27.798: WARN/dalvikvm(17473): threadid=3: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4001e390)
 01-06 09:52:27.807: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473): Uncaught handler: thread main exiting due to uncaught exception
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{}: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #2: Error inflating class <unknown
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2596) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2621) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleRelaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3812) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2300(ActivityThread.java:126) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1936) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4595) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:860) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:618) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473): Caused by: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #2: Error inflating class <unknown
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:513) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneLayoutInflater.onCreateView(PhoneLayoutInflater.java:56) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:563) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:385) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:320) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:276) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.setContentView(PhoneWindow.java:207) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.Activity.setContentView(Activity.java:1629) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at onCreate(Game.java:98)
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2544) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     ...  12 more
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473): Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.widget.LinearLayout.<init>(LinearLayout.java:92) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.constructNative(Native Method)
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:446) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:500) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     ...  22 more
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473): Caused by: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: bitmap size exceeds VM budget
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.nativeDecodeAsset(Native Method)
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeStream(BitmapFactory.java:464) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeResourceStream(BitmapFactory.java:340) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromResourceStream(Drawable.java:697) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.content.res.Resources.loadDrawable(Resources.java:1705) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.content.res.TypedArray.getDrawable(TypedArray.java:548) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:1850) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:1799) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     at android.view.ViewGroup.<init>(ViewGroup.java:296) 
 01-06 09:52:27.857: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(17473):     ...  26 more 

Answer 1

I made a couple of extensions to @hp.android's excellent answer:

1. Instead of defining a RootView ID in each XML class, I dynamically find the root view using android.R.id.content.
2. As @Mario Lenci says, AdapterView doesn't support removeAllViews, so I check the type of the view before calling removeAllViews().
3. IMO it isn't a good idea to call System.gc() in every onDestroy call (e.g. this answer), so I've removed that.
4. I've made a static onDestroy method that I call from onDestroy in all my custom Activity classes.
5. I've added some extra error protection and logging.

Here's the code:

    public static void onDestroy(Activity activity) {
        View rootView = null;

        try {            
            rootView = ((ViewGroup) activity.findViewById(android.R.id.content))
                    .getChildAt(0);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            Log.w("Cannot find root view to call unbindDrawables on",
                  activity);
        }

        if (rootView != null) {
            Log.d("unbindDrawables", activity, rootView);
            unbindDrawables(rootView);
        }
    }

    /**
      * Utility method to unbind drawables when an activity is destroyed.  This
      * ensures the drawables can be garbage collected.
      */
     public static void unbindDrawables(View view) {
         if (view.getBackground() != null) {
             view.getBackground().setCallback(null);
         }

         if (view instanceof ViewGroup) {
             for (int i = 0; i < ((ViewGroup) view).getChildCount(); i++) {
                 unbindDrawables(((ViewGroup) view).getChildAt(i));
             }

             try {                
                 // AdapterView objects do not support the removeAllViews method
                 if (!(view instanceof AdapterView)) {             
                     ((ViewGroup) view).removeAllViews();
                 }
             } catch (Exception e) {
                 Log.w("Ignore Exception in unbindDrawables", e);
             }
         }
     }

Answer 2

Add this line of code to Android Manifest File inside "application" tag: - android:largeHeap="true"

<application
         android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar"
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:largeHeap="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
       >

Answer 3

A 1550532 byte allocation sounds big. I'm guessing your layout has a reference to a bitmap image of some kind, a PNG perhaps? What are the dimensions of this PNG? If it is really big and you have more than a couple of them you might just not have enough memory to load them all at once.

Also if this is triggered by the rotation remember that your Activity is destroyed and recreated so you might need to be careful of static references. Take a look at this Google blog post. You'll need to be careful of keeping static references to things in your code which may result in leaks

Answer 4

Where does the image source come from? Do you have a 9MB image in your drawables folder?

There's a lot of discussion on issues with Android's native bitmap memory management, e.g. http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=10821, http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=8488, http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/ed57849ef705d421/11af8362d77a8cf4?lnk=raot . I've had good luck explicitly invoking recycle() and System.gc() every time I am finished with a bitmap, e.g.:

private void changeImage() {
     if (mCurrentImage != null) {
          mCurrentImage.recycle();
          mCurrentImage = null;
          System.gc();
     }
     mCurrentImage = getNewImage();
}

Answer 5

One of the most common errors that I found developing Android Apps is the

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Bitmap Size Exceeds VM Budget

error. I found this error frequently on Activities using lots of bitmaps after changing orientation: the Activity is destroyed, created again and the layouts are “inflated” from the XML consuming the VM memory available for bitmaps.

Bitmaps on the previous Activity layout are not properly deallocated by the garbage collector because they have crossed references to their activity. After many experiments I found a quite good solution for this problem.

First, set the “id” attribute on the parent view of your XML layout:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:id="@+id/RootView">
        ...

Then, on the onDestroy() method of your Activity, call the unbindDrawables() method passing a reference to the parent View and then do a System.gc().

    @Override
    protected void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();

        unbindDrawables(findViewById(R.id.RootView));
        System.gc();
    }

    private void unbindDrawables(View view) {
        if (view.getBackground() != null) {
            view.getBackground().setCallback(null);
        }
        if (view instanceof ViewGroup) {
            for (int i = 0; i < ((ViewGroup) view).getChildCount(); i++) {
                unbindDrawables(((ViewGroup) view).getChildAt(i));
            }
            ((ViewGroup) view).removeAllViews();
        }
    }

This unbindDrawables() method explores the view tree recursively and:

1. Removes callbacks on all the background drawables
2. Removes childs on every viewgroup

Answer 6

You can fix the problem using opts.inSampleSize=2; or opts.inSampleSize=4

BitmapFactory.Options opts = new BitmapFactory.Options();
// opts.inJustDecodeBounds = true; 
opts.inSampleSize=2;    
Bitmap myBitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(st_imagepath,opts);