how to stop/cancel android CountDownTimer

Question

I'm extending the CountDownTimer class to obtain some custom functionality .In onTick() in case some conditions are met I call cancel() , expecting that will be the end of it, however the onTick() callback gets call until the the count down is reached . So how to prevent this from happening ?

Boastful

Answer 1

CountDownTimer.cancel() method seems to be not working. Here's another thread without a solution Timer does not stop in android.

I would recommend you to use Timer instead. It's much more flexible and can be cancelled at any time. It may be something like that:

public class MainActivity extends Activity {    
    TextView mTextField;
    long elapsed;
    final static long INTERVAL=1000;
    final static long TIMEOUT=5000;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        mTextField=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.textview1);

        TimerTask task=new TimerTask(){
            @Override
            public void run() {
                elapsed+=INTERVAL;
                if(elapsed>=TIMEOUT){
                    this.cancel();
                    displayText("finished");
                    return;
                }
                //if(some other conditions)
                //   this.cancel();
                displayText("seconds elapsed: " + elapsed / 1000);
            }
        };
        Timer timer = new Timer();
        timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(task, INTERVAL, INTERVAL);
    }

    private void displayText(final String text){
        this.runOnUiThread(new Runnable(){
            @Override
            public void run() {
                mTextField.setText(text);
            }});
    }
}

Quicktempered

Just made a drop-in replacement for CountDownTimer that you can cancel from within onTick : gist.github.com/737759 – Cracow

@GautierHayoun By you method I can cancel in onTick, but the onTick() will still be called, don't know why – Reneta

Answer 2

CountDownTimer is also working fine for me, but I think it only works if you call it OUTSIDE of the CountDownTimer implemetation (that is don't call it in the onTick).

Calling it inside also didn't worked.

Evensong

Yea, calling it in onTick doesnt seem to work.I forcely called onFinish and tried cancelling the countdowntimer inside onFinish and it worked – Hammering

Answer 3

I tried this code snippet, since most answers are saying you cannot cancel the timer inside its implementation, thus i tried using a handler inside onFinish. Old post but if anyone comes across this its helpful.

new Handler().post(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                timerTextView.setText("00:" + String.format("%02d", counter));
                cancel();
            }
        });

Hamon