Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

[3.7.0] Espresso IdlingResources + Looper timeouts

Open
  • Is something wrong?
#2,461 6 comments 4 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
25/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
java
Domain
mobile-dev, testing

Research direction

Start with androidx.test.espresso.base.Interrogator, especially loopAndInterrogate, and trace how registerLooperAsIdlingResource changes Looper handling in 3.7.0 versus 3.6.x. Compare dump() and Looper.setMessageLogging behavior with and without the registration, using the reported timeout as the reproduction; done means identifying or fixing the regression, or exposing enough task and handler state to explain the timeout.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

In 3.7.0 (this didn't happen in 3.6.x) we started getting idling resource timeouts for the loopers registered with registerLooperAsIdlingResource. It's unclear why they are suddenly timing out since calling dump() shows no queues messages/tasks.

However, things are hard to debug because androidx.test.espresso.base.Interrogator replaces the default queue handling with its own less realistic loopAndInterrogate impl. As a result, we can't use things like Looper.setMessageLogging as that config is ignored by the internal Handler of Interrogator. I also question whether loopAndInterrogate is correct, since when i don't call registerLooperAsIdlingResource the output of dump is different (and the message logging works), while ideally it should be the same.

Likely not useful, but here's an example stack-trace:

01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: androidx.test.espresso.IdlingResourceTimeoutException: Wait for [LooperIdlingResource-88-epoxy, LooperIdlingResource-87-FooWorkerThread] to become idle timed out
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at dalvik.system.VMStack.getThreadStackTrace(Native Method)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at java.lang.Thread.getStackTrace(Thread.java:1960)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.base.EspressoExceptionHandler.handleSafely(EspressoExceptionHandler.java:34)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.base.EspressoExceptionHandler.handleSafely(EspressoExceptionHandler.java:26)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.base.DefaultFailureHandler$TypedFailureHandler.handle(DefaultFailureHandler.java:158)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.base.DefaultFailureHandler.handle(DefaultFailureHandler.java:120)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.ViewInteraction.waitForAndHandleInteractionResults(ViewInteraction.java:385)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.ViewInteraction.desugaredPerform(ViewInteraction.java:212)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.ViewInteraction.perform(ViewInteraction.java:140)
01-10 21:37:12.126 12249 12279 E TestRunner: 	at androidx.test.espresso.Espresso.closeSoftKeyboard(Espresso.java:206)

I suspect it's a regression in 3.7.0, but if not, it would be nice to include more debugging info in the error about what task(s) are beleived to make the handler/looper not idle and also unclear dump() and setMessageLogging.

Dominant language
Java
Stars
1.2k
Forks
342
Avg merge
2d 22h
Merged PRs (30d)
7

Getting set up

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from android/android-test

All issues in android/android-test

Similar issues

More Java issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.