List of annoying Android bugs you should know about

by Michael Bernier

Custom drawables and LayerDrawable

There is a bug in Android where if you create a Custom drawable and don't overload the getConstantState() method, your app will crash when you call layerDrawable.mutate();

This caused our app to crash with the new BottomNavigationView because in the code for the drawable, it calls drawable.mutate(); to tint the selected buttons.

Hence why it's important to override Drawable.getConstantState()

drawableStart and drawableEnd tint

Yes there is a bug from Android 5.0 until 6.0 that was fixed in 7.0 where drawableTint doesn't apply on drawableStart and drawableEnd

Some solutions can be used

  • Use drawableLeft drawableRight (You will get warnings about left to right support)
  • Set the drawable tint in code
  • Create multiple drawable resource for each colors