Why am I getting this ClassCastException in my AsyncTask?

Issue

First off, please do not tl;dr this. It just a lot of quickly-scannable code. Actual sentences are few and concise :).

I have a weird problem. A ClassCastException is force-closing my Activity, but the exception does not indicate where the problem actually is. Here's the exception:

E/AndroidRuntime(  402): FATAL EXCEPTION: AsyncTask #4
E/AndroidRuntime(  402): java.lang.RuntimeException: An error occured while executing doInBackground()
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at android.os.AsyncTask$3.done(AsyncTask.java:200)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerSetException(FutureTask.java:274)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.setException(FutureTask.java:125)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:308)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402): Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: [Ljava.lang.Object;
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at mypackage.DayActivity$EventsFetcher.doInBackground(DayActivity.java:1)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:185)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:306)
E/AndroidRuntime(  402):    ... 4 more
W/ActivityManager(   61):   Force finishing activity mypackage/mypackage.DayActivity

As you can see, it says that the error occurs on line 1 of DayActivity.java, which is the default package declaration (i.e. package mypackage).

Here's my doInBackground method. Here, the weirdness intensifies, as the whole method is basically a try/catch block:

@Override
protected List<Event> doInBackground(Void... params) {
    try {
        final List<Event> events;
        if (connectivityReceiver.hasConnection()) {
            events = WebApi.getEvents(Util.getSelectedUser(DayActivity.this).getId(), start, end);
        }
        else if (Util.isPeriodCached(DayActivity.this, start, end)) {
            final List<Event> allEvents = (List<Event>) new Cache(DayActivity.this).get(Cache.EVENTS);
            events = Util.filterEvents(allEvents, start, end, Util.getSelectedUser(DayActivity.this).getId());
        }
        else {
            events = null;
        }
        return events;
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e(Const.TAG, "Could not fetch events for day view", e);
    }
    return null;
}

In theory, any exception thrown should be caught and logged. I don't see how that could not happen. The trick is that in onPostExecute, I run this code:

if (!connectivityReceiver.hasConnection()) {
    Util.retryDialog(DayActivity.this, R.string.no_cache, R.string.no_cache_msg,
        new EventsFetcher(dialog), false).show();
}

Here's retryDialog():

public static Dialog retryDialog(final Activity context, int titleRes, int messageRes,
        final AsyncTask retry, final boolean finishOnCancel) {
    return new AlertDialog.Builder(context)
        .setTitle(titleRes)
        .setMessage(messageRes)
        .setPositiveButton(R.string.retry, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
                if (retry != null) {
                    retry.execute();
                }
            }
        })
        .setNegativeButton(R.string.cancel, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
                if (finishOnCancel) {
                    context.finish();
                }
            }
        })
        .create();
}

The problem is that the task works once, the dialog gets displayed, but then when I click retry that exception is thrown, crashing my app.

Solution

What AsyncTask are you passing in to retry? an AsyncTask can only execute once, so you need to create a new instance, and not try to restart the already executed instance. Taken from the javadoc for AsyncTask:

The task can be executed only once (an exception will be thrown if a second execution is attempted.)

Edit: .. this is how I interpret the stacktrace. Something is going wrong when executing done in AsyncTask. The thing that is wrong is a cast of Object[] to something that it isn't. Possibly when going from doInBackground to onPostExecute, but that's just a wild guess. Might be caused by a restart of the task, if that is what you are trying to do.

Answered By - Kaj