getActionBar() returns null

Question

I\'m having an odd problem. I am making an app with targetsdk 13.

In my main activity\'s onCreate method i call getActionBar() to setup my actionbar. T

Answer 1

This may also help some people.

In my case, it was because I had not defined a context in the menu.xml

Try this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
tools:context="com.example.android.ActionBarActivity">

Instead of this:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

Answer 2

I had the same problem and one of the solutions was to use setContentView() before calling getActionBar().

But there was another thing that fixed the problem. I specified theme for the application to be @android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.

<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light" >
    ...
</application>

I think any theme, which has <item name="android:windowActionBar">true</item> in it, can be used.

Answer 3

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;

then

extends AppCompatActivity

then use

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

Answer 4

In my case, I had this in my code which did not work:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    context = getApplicationContext();

    requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}

Then I played with the order of the code:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR);

    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    context = getApplicationContext();
}

And it worked!

Conclusion: requestWindowFeature should be the first thing you call in the onCreate method.

Answer 5

go to the AndroidManifest.xml and replace

android:theme="@style/AppTheme"

by 

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar"

Answer 6

One thing I wanted to add since I just ran into this, if you are trying to getActionBar() on an Activity that has a parent, it will return null. I am trying to refactor code where my Activity is contained inside an ActivityGroup, and it took a good few minutes for me to go "oh duh" after looking at the source of how an ActionBar gets created in source.