CreateFromStream in Android returning null for certain url

Question

public class TestButton extends Activity {   
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */   
    ImageButton imgBtn;   
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        imgBtn = (ImageButton) findViewById(R.id.image);
        //String url = "http://thenextweb.com/apps/files/2010/03/google_logo.jpg";
        String url1 = "http://trueslant.com/michaelshermer/files/2010/03/evil-google.jpg";
        Drawable drawable = LoadImage(url1);
        imgBtn.setImageDrawable(drawable);
    }

    private Drawable LoadImage(String url) {
        try {
            InputStream is = (InputStream) new URL(url).getContent();
            Drawable d = Drawable.createFromStream(is, "src");
            return d;
        } catch (Exception e) {
            return null;
        }
    }
}

Above is the code snippet which I use to load image from web into ImageButton. Most of the images get displayed , but certain urls like the one above i.e. url1 , Drawable.createFromStream returns null !! What is the reason and how to avoid it or overcome this problem ?

mcveat mcveat · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-20T20:55:53

I've stumbled upon same problem today. And found an answer, luckily :) There is a bug in SDK, described more or less on that google groups thread.

Workaround that worked for me is:

     private static final int BUFFER_IO_SIZE = 8000;

     private Bitmap loadImageFromUrl(final String url) {
        try {
            // Addresses bug in SDK :
            // http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/4ed17d7e48899b26/
            BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(new URL(url).openStream(), BUFFER_IO_SIZE);
            ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            BufferedOutputStream bos = new BufferedOutputStream(baos, BUFFER_IO_SIZE);
            copy(bis, bos);
            bos.flush();
            return BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(baos.toByteArray(), 0, baos.size());
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // handle it properly
        }
    }

    private void copy(final InputStream bis, final OutputStream baos) throws IOException {
        byte[] buf = new byte[256];
        int l;
        while ((l = bis.read(buf)) >= 0) baos.write(buf, 0, l);
    }

And make sure not to set buffers size to more than 8k, because OS will use default size instead of the one you set (logging that of course, but it took me a while to notice that ;) ).

CreateFromStream in Android returning null for certain url

2 Answers