FragmentContainerView as NavHostFragment

Seems like using the FragmentContainerView doesn't work right out of the box?

<androidx.fragment.app.FragmentContainerView
        class="androidx.navigation.fragment.NavHostFragment"
        android:id="@+id/fragment_nav_host"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        app:defaultNavHost="true"
        app:navGraph="@navigation/nav_app" />

Here's my code using fragment-ktx:1.2.0-rc01 and I'm just always getting this error:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Activity ...MainActivity@797467d does not have a NavController set on 2131296504

Just using <fragment> works and AFAIK, it's just supposed to be replaced by FragmentContainerView.

Am I missing something or was anyone able to use FragmentContainerView as a NavHostFragment?

Many thanks!

Solution 1:

Due to this bug-report: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/142847973

This is the only way (currently):

val navHostFragment = supportFragmentManager
    .findFragmentById(R.id.my_nav_host_fragment) as NavHostFragment
val navController = navHostFragment.navController

(Java):

NavHostFragment navHostFragment =
    (NavHostFragment) getSupportFragmentManager()
        .findFragmentById(R.id.my_nav_host_fragment);
NavController navController = navHostFragment.getNavController();

Solution 2:

August 2020 update

Here is the solution recommended by the official Android documentation.

Kotlin version:

val navHostFragment = supportFragmentManager.findFragmentById(R.id.nav_host_fragment) as NavHostFragment
val navController = navHostFragment.navController

Java version:

NavHostFragment navHostFragment = supportFragmentManager.findFragmentById(R.id.nav_host_fragment);
NavController navController = navHostFragment.getNavController();

I quote the doc:

When creating the NavHostFragment using FragmentContainerView or if manually adding the NavHostFragment to your activity via a FragmentTransaction, attempting to retrieve the NavController in onCreate() of an Activity via Navigation.findNavController(Activity, @IdRes int) will fail. You should retrieve the NavController directly from the NavHostFragment instead.

The bug-report reported by Ove Stoerholt will not be fixed. You can see here the "Won't Fix (Infeasible)" status.

Solution 3:

What I did was to wait for the NavHostFragment to inflate its view:

Kotlin:

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)

// Set up the form and list.
setContentView(R.layout.activity_xxx)

// Set up navigation - action bar and sidebar.
/// Let the navigation view check/uncheck the menu items.
nav_view.post { // wait for NavHostFragment to inflate
    val navController = findNavController()
    nav_view.setupWithNavController(navController)
    nav_view.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(this)
}

Java8 (with lambda):

navigationView.post(() -> { // wait for NavHostFragment to inflate
    navController = Navigation.findNavController(activity, R.id.nav_host_fragment);
    NavigationUI.setupWithNavController(navView, navController);
    navView.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(navItemSelectedListener);
});