Facebook login - cannot call LoginActivity with null calling package

Question

I have an activity A that has no specified launchMode and that uses the Facebook SDK to login.

Activity A starts activity B, which is launch mode singleTop.

Somehow, I'm running into this error periodically on resume, in rather rare circumstances.

Any thoughts on what this could be? I'm not entirely understanding how I could be hitting this if I'm not making any Facebook SDK calls from any activity that has a launch mode specified. All the other stuff I've run down on this error involves a pretty straightforward interpretation of this error text, which this doesn't seem to be.

This only happens onResume. To be extra clear, in the normal course of the activity, everything works just fine, the facebook login window launches fine, etc.

In my manifest I do have:

<activity android:name="com.facebook.LoginActivity"/>

and the launching activity as

<activity android:name="mypackage.login.SocialLoginActivity" android:screenOrientation="portrait">

The error text:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to resume activity {mypackage/com.facebook.LoginActivity}: com.facebook.FacebookException: Cannot call LoginActivity with a null calling package. This can occur if the launchMode of the caller is singleInstance.
       at android.app.ActivityThread.performResumeActivity(ActivityThread.java:2639)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.handleResumeActivity(ActivityThread.java:2667)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2140)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.access$700(ActivityThread.java:140)
       at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1237)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4921)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Method.java)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1027)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:794)
       at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(NativeStart.java)
Caused by: com.facebook.FacebookException: Cannot call LoginActivity with a null calling package. This can occur if the launchMode of the caller is singleInstance.
       at com.facebook.LoginActivity.onResume(LoginActivity.java:111)
       at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnResume(Instrumentation.java:1199)
       at android.app.Activity.performResume(Activity.java:5280)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.performResumeActivity(ActivityThread.java:2629)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.handleResumeActivity(ActivityThread.java:2667)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2140)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.access$700(ActivityThread.java:140)
       at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1237)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4921)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Method.java)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1027)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:794)
       at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(NativeStart.java)

have you declare LoginActivity of facebook in your AndroidManifest.xml file..? — Imtiyaz Khalani, Jan 21 '14 at 07:06
yes - this error only triggers very occasionally in onResume. Without the line in the manifest, it wouldn't work at all. Edited the question to include this. — secureboot, Jan 21 '14 at 16:30
Activity A doesn't override onResume, and Activity B calls super.onResume as the first line. — secureboot, Jan 22 '14 at 21:04
i found surrounding [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14123580/updated-android-facebook-api-3-0-error-cannot-call-loginactivity-with-a-null). — Imtiyaz Khalani, Jan 23 '14 at 08:13

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 09 '14 at 01:02

I ran into this problem, as well. If you look into the facebook source for the LoginActivity you will find the following comment:

    // If the calling package is null, this generally means that the callee was started
    // with a launchMode of singleInstance. Unfortunately, Android does not allow a result
    // to be set when the callee is a singleInstance, so we log an error and return.
    if (callingPackage == null) {
        Log.e(TAG, NULL_CALLING_PKG_ERROR_MSG);
        finish();
        return;
    }

If you adjust your manifest (AndroidManifest.xml) to something other than 'singleInstance' (I chose standard -- the differences are outlined here):

<activity
  android:name="com.your.package.YourActivity"
  android:label="@string/app_name"
  android:launchMode="singleInstance" >

to:

<activity
  android:name="com.your.package.YourActivity"
  android:label="@string/app_name"
  android:launchMode="standard" >

then authentication proceeded as normal!

I had `android:launchMode="singleTask"`, removing it solved the issue for me. Thanks — shkschneider, Jan 16 '15 at 11:42

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 06 '14 at 15:53

I had the same error. I used singleton. Error for me was that instance of activity was not the same. I add next

public static FacebookManager getInstance(Activity activity){
        if (mInstance==null)
            synchronized (FacebookManager.class) {
                if (mInstance==null)
                    mInstance=new FacebookManager(activity);
            }
        if (activity!=null&&!mInstance.mActivity.equals(activity))
            mInstance.mActivity=activity;
        return mInstance;
}

And it work

score -3 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 21 '14 at 07:12

-3

just declare this Activity to your manifest.xml file

     <activity
        android:name="com.facebook.LoginActivity"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar" />

answered Jan 21 '14 at 07:12

NagarjunaReddy

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Updated the question to make it clearer that this is in there. Without this part, it would never work, not just fail to work in onResume. – secureboot Jan 21 '14 at 16:31

Facebook login - cannot call LoginActivity with null calling package

3 Answers3