App freezes on custom Android Kitkat 4.4 with failed de-queue buffer error

Question

Am running my app on a Posiflex machine which runs Android 4.4. My home page is a webview(which will use Chromium 30). Sometimes my app freezes and the logcat shows the following error

DequeueBufferWrapper: Failed to de-queue buffer

Native window is invalid

After the above error theres also a stack trace with:

ViewRootImpl: Could not lock surface
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
at android.view.Surface.nativeLockCanvas(Native Method)
at android.view.Surface.lockCanvas(Surface.java:246)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.drawSoftware(ViewRootImpl.java:2435)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.draw(ViewRootImpl.java:2409)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performDraw(ViewRootImpl.java:2253)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performTraversals(ViewRootImpl.java:1883)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.doTraversal(ViewRootImpl.java:1000)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl$TraversalRunnable.run(ViewRootImpl.java:5670)
at android.view.Choreographer$CallbackRecord.run(Choreographer.java:761)
at android.view.Choreographer.doCallbacks(Choreographer.java:574)
at android.view.Choreographer.doFrame(Choreographer.java:544)
at android.view.Choreographer$FrameDisplayEventReceiver.run(Choreographer.java:747)
at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:733)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4998)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:811)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:627)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
01-29 00:07:48.092 12167-12167/in.zeta.android.pos.debug E/Surface: dequeueBuffer failed (Invalid argument)
01-29 00:07:48.092 12167-12167/in.zeta.android.pos.debug 

E/ViewRootImpl: Could not lock surface
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
at android.view.Surface.nativeLockCanvas(Native Method)
at android.view.Surface.lockCanvas(Surface.java:246)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.drawSoftware(ViewRootImpl.java:2435)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.draw(ViewRootImpl.java:2409)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performDraw(ViewRootImpl.java:2253)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performTraversals(ViewRootImpl.java:1883)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl.doTraversal(ViewRootImpl.java:1000)
at android.view.ViewRootImpl$TraversalRunnable.run(ViewRootImpl.java:5670)
at android.view.Choreographer$CallbackRecord.run(Choreographer.java:761)
at android.view.Choreographer.doCallbacks(Choreographer.java:574)
at android.view.Choreographer.doFrame(Choreographer.java:544)
at android.view.Choreographer$FrameDisplayEventReceiver.run(Choreographer.java:747)
at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:733)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4998)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:811)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:627)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

I am simply using this device and have no control on how the Surface or custom views have been implemented. Is there any workaround for this issue. My app freezes after such an error.

Answer 1

After observing several cases of the same error, I have found that the error may happen only on using a Webview in android Kitkat (Android 4.4),the fast solution if you are sure you will only run the app on Kitkat is by turning off hardware acceleration:

webView.setLayerType(View.LAYER_TYPE_SOFTWARE, null);

but if you support different versions (other devices) then:

if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT == android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.KITKAT){ 
    webView.setLayerType(View.LAYER_TYPE_SOFTWARE, null);
  }