Problem using android.accounts Authenticator

Question

I'm new to the android.accounts apis, and now I'm trying to do something with them but a seemly dummy problem occurs...
I`ve created an Authenticator for my app but did not yet implement the abstract methods. The icon of it successfully appears in the system Add a Account window, and I know that when I click it, the method addAccount in the Authenticator will be invoked.

Now I wish to do some simple thing in this method, and write codes below:

    @Override
public Bundle addAccount(AccountAuthenticatorResponse response,
        String accountType, String authTokenType, String[] requiredFeatures,
        Bundle options) {

    Log.d(LOG_TAG, "RRAuthenticator add account... ");
    String accountName = "[e-mail]";
    Account account = new Account(accountName, accountType);
    String password = "example_password";
    AccountManager manager = AccountManager.get(context);
    manager.addAccountExplicitly(account, password, null);

    Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
    bundle.putString(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_NAME, accountName);
    bundle.putString(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_TYPE, accountType);
    bundle.putString(AccountManager.KEY_AUTHTOKEN, "example_authtoken");
    return bundle;
}

I've seen the demo of SampleSyncAdapter, and make moves like it. But I practice using these APIs by directly adding an account. But system crashed by the line manager.addAccountExplicitly(account, password, null); What's wrong with it?

---

Added later: Exception in system process. System will crash. NullPointerException throw by AccountManager. It seems the problem of the addAccountExplicitly method, as I comment this statement no crash happen.

Answer 1

I've worked it out.

It turns out that it's a bug in Android 2.0.
If you add an account to the AccountManager, you must also provide a SynAdapter to the account, under the Android 2.0 platform. But things are all right under Android 2.1 and above.

This is a known issue, please refer to:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5009
and
AccountManager without a SyncAdapter?

Answer 2

 Account account = new Account(username, AuthConstants.ACCOUNT_TYPE);
            if (am.addAccountExplicitly(account, password, null)) {
                result = new Bundle();
                ContentResolver.setSyncAutomatically(account, DB.AUTHORITY, true);
                result.putString(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_NAME, account.name);
                result.putString(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_TYPE, account.type);
                return result;
            } 

I am using this code in one of my apps which works perfectly. the key here is the AccountAuthenticatorActivity that should set the authentication result bundle which should be registered (the sync adapter from android developers has this.

also here is my addAccount method for the accountAuthentication service

    @Override
public Bundle addAccount(AccountAuthenticatorResponse response,
    String accountType, String authTokenType, String[] requiredFeatures,
    Bundle options) {
    final Intent intent = new Intent(mContext, LoginScreen.class);
    intent.putExtra(LoginScreen.PARAM_AUTHTOKEN_TYPE,
        authTokenType);
    intent.putExtra(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_AUTHENTICATOR_RESPONSE,
        response);
    final Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
    bundle.putParcelable(AccountManager.KEY_INTENT, intent);
    return bundle;
}

UPDATE

Authenticator

Here is a link i used. this is a good project. i believe it is from the last.fm android app. it also has the source code open on git i believe. so try to compare with that.

PERMISSIONS

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS" />
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MANAGE_ACCOUNTS" />
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.AUTHENTICATE_ACCOUNTS" />
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_SYNC_SETTINGS" />
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SYNC_SETTINGS" />
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS" />
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS" />