The project I'm working on is slightly more complicated but I made this simple test to try to track down what was wrong with my code. The progress dialog never dismisses. I had it at one point where they weren't returning null. '
public class SyncTestActivity extends Activity { /** Called when the activity is first created. */ @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.main); new mTask(this).execute(); } public class mTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> { Context mContext; ProgressDialog progressDialog; public mTask(Context aContext) { mContext = aContext; } @Override public void onPreExecute() { progressDialog = new ProgressDialog(mContext); progressDialog.setMessage("New..."); progressDialog.show(); } @Override public Void doInBackground(Void... params) { return null; } public Void onPostExecute(Void... params) { progressDialog.dismiss(); return null; } } }