"_Problem Loading Widget" message

Question

When loading a widget if it cannot find a resource or something it says Problem Loading Widget. That's all! Amazing! This message remains on the home screen and does not even say which widget it had trouble loading.

I figured it out by trial and error but I would like to know if there are any places to find the error message when this occurs. Where will Android say what problem it had loading the widget or even which widget it failed to load?

Solution 1

As said in comments, check logcat. What you will see is a NullPointerException. I have had this before too.

Solution 2

Check elements you used in the view in a Widget..

Documentation link

A RemoteViews object (and, consequently, an App Widget) can support the following layout classes:

• FrameLayout
• LinearLayout
• RelativeLayout
• GridLayout

And the following widget classes:

• AnalogClock
• Button
• Chronometer
• ImageButton
• ImageView
• ProgressBar
• TextView
• ViewFlipper
• ListView
• GridView
• StackView
• AdapterViewFlipper

Using forbidden elements causes this very

Problem Loading Widget

Solution 3

Yet another possible cause of this:

I saw this in the log:

Failed to resolve attribute

The issue was that I was attempting to use a colour from the current theme as the background to one of my layouts.

e.g

android:background="?themeColor"

Changing this to a specific colour resolved the issue.

android:background="@color/White"

Solution 4

Basically Widgets swallow exceptions. Just set an appropriate filter in your logcat, and you'll be able to see what the problem is...

Above, I am just searching for the Word "Widget" and setting no filter on any specific application. It essentially gives me the Throwable.getMessage() without the full stack trace.

Solution 5

A RemoteViews object (and, consequently, an App Widget) can support the following layout classes:

FrameLayout
LinearLayout
RelativeLayout
GridLayout

And the following widget classes:

AnalogClock
Button
Chronometer
ImageButton
ImageView
ProgressBar
TextView
ViewFlipper
ListView
GridView
StackView
AdapterViewFlipper

Anything using other than above causes this so called "Problem Loading widget".

Moreover, check logs (without any filter) to see exact line of this problem.

View more solutions

Comments

[Androider]

I would add that sometimes its a warning message if its a resource. Not always a error is shown I think.

[Androider]

Usually it is trying to access a resource like R.id.? or something that is not there.

[mmrobins]

So once you see the error, how do you correct it? I've tried uninstalling the app, but the widget warning remains.

[hasanghaforian]

It may be caused by another reason.Not only NullPointerException.In logcat you can see message as warning`.

[Maarten]

I have this problem now and logcat stays quiet.

[Radu]

@Maarten One thing to note is that Logcat will usually show you the error. What you may have overlooked is that it does not show it as part of your application package!! So remove the package filter from Logcat!

[Radu]

@Gangnus One thing to note is that Logcat will usually show you the error. What you may have overlooked is that it does not show it as part of your application package!! So remove the package filter from Logcat!

[Gangnus]

@Radu Are you sure you placed the comment correctly? I am not saying that Logcat doesn't mention the error. But whithout some additional logging it is hard or impossible to say, where the error happened.

[Radu]

@Gangnus You can re-read my message. I am saying your comment is right about the views that are allowd. Usually using a non-allowed view causes appwidget to break. What I am commenting upon is that you will find a trace in Logcat by default, from Android. It's just that those traces will not have your package name!

[Gangnus]

@Radu Yes. And a developer needs to see at least in what thread the exception happened. Better - in what method.

[canova]

@Gangnus I only have got ImageView, Linearlayout, Textview and Relativelayout. Widget is working perfectly in Android +3.0 devices but on gingerbread, it says problem loading widget. No error or exception on logcat. Any idea why it may be like that (may be any attributes used which are not supported)? By the way, wigdet sizes are adjusted for every android version.

[Gangnus]

@SirSC Your comment should be put as a separate question, with reference to this one and explanation of its uniqueness - as you put it here. What is +3.0? Maybe, 3.0+? Also, publish the stack, you can't do it in comment

[Murat]

As @PKTomar mentioned you can face with this issue if you use too many inner layouts. Do not increase the depth of the layouts.

[sivag1]

I was absolutely not able to figure out what was going on and this was the issue. The Layout was very deep and Android didn't like it. It simply said "Problem Loading Widget" or "Loading..." in the Collection widgets like StackView and ListView. Simplify the layout and all back to work again.

[Gábor]

Although not as comfortable as using themed attributes, you can still have changing colors in widgets by using calls like remoteViews.setInt(R.id.xxx, "setBackgroundColor", color) or remoteViews.setTextColor(R.id.xxx, color).

[EricRobertBrewer]

Even using AppCompat elements such as android.support.v7.widget.GridLayout will not work.

[RedBassett]

I didn't see the "resolved attribute" error anywhere, but this was the cause in my case as well!

[Oussama Haff.]

Anyone who passes by this question.. DON'T use ConstraintLayout. it doesn't work on widgets.

[Gangnus]

@user6539552 there won't be any finally. For the message appears due to several main reasons and each of these reasons can be caused by many details, changing from version to version. The question with answers is more or less actual - that is what we should value

[wooldridgetm]

for me, it was caused by setting the property applicationIdSuffix ".debug" in my build.gradle file. Make sure the resources are located under the correct appId.

[Slawa]

Seeing the error is 99% of the solution. Thank you.

[Dymas]

I was trying to use a ConstraintLayout in my widget, this explains why I was getting an error. Thank you!

[Túlio Calazans]

On logcat tab (Android Studio), select 'No filter' because this error is not shown when an application is selected. Then, add a widget on the screen, you will probably see the issue.

[Mustafa Berkay Mutlu]

In my case I was trying to use theme attributes without specifying which theme. adding android:theme="@style/myTheme" to layout solved it

[Mark]

This fixed it for me. I'm surprised no one else upvoted this even though 4 years old! issuetracker.google.com/issues/224824097