AppcompatActivity: OutMemoryException

Question

Asking this question again with some more details. we recently switched to using AppCompatActivity instead of FragmentActivity and now some devices are randomly crashing with the following error. No idea why this is happening.

The stack trace shows it crashes on calling the super.onCreate() of the AppCompatActivity.

Fatal Exception: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Failed to allocate a 16008012 byte allocation with 4277152 free bytes and 4MB until OOM
   at dalvik.system.VMRuntime.newNonMovableArray(VMRuntime.java)
   at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.nativeDecodeAsset(BitmapFactory.java)
   at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeStream(BitmapFactory.java:856)
   at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeResourceStream(BitmapFactory.java:675)
   at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeResource(BitmapFactory.java:703)
   at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeResource(BitmapFactory.java:733)
   at android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable.updateStateFromTypedArray(BitmapDrawable.java:779)
   at android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable.inflate(BitmapDrawable.java:741)
   at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromXmlInner(Drawable.java:2549)
   at android.graphics.drawable.LayerDrawable.inflateLayers(LayerDrawable.java:254)
   at android.graphics.drawable.LayerDrawable.inflate(LayerDrawable.java:164)
   at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromXmlInner(Drawable.java:2549)
   at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromXml(Drawable.java:2320)
   at android.content.res.Resources.loadDrawableForCookie(Resources.java:4210)
   at android.content.res.Resources.loadDrawable(Resources.java:4089)
   at android.content.res.Resources.getDrawable(Resources.java:2005)
   at android.content.res.Resources.getDrawable(Resources.java:1987)
   at android.content.Context.getDrawable(Context.java:464)
   at android.support.v4.content.ContextCompat.android.support.v4.content.ContextCompatApi21.getDrawable(SourceFile:3026)
   at android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatDrawableManager.getDrawable(SourceFile:200)
   at android.support.v7.widget.TintTypedArray.getDrawableIfKnown(SourceFile:81)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplBase.(SourceFile:127)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV9.(SourceFile:147)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV11.(SourceFile:27)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV14.(SourceFile:53)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegateImplV23.(SourceFile:29)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegate.create(SourceFile:203)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatDelegate.create(SourceFile:185)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity.getDelegate(SourceFile:525)
   at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity.onCreate(SourceFile:74)
   at com.dubizzle.horizontal.activities.AbstractActivity.onCreate(SourceFile:98)
   at com.dubizzle.horizontal.activities.ItemPhotoViewer.onCreate(SourceFile:68)
   at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:6876)
   at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1135)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3207)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3350)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1100(ActivityThread.java:222)
   at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1795)
   at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
   at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:158)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7229)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1230)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1120)

Here is the structure: ItemPhotoViewer onCreate():

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // calls the AbstractActivity onCreate
// a bunch of other things
}

AbstractActivity onCreate():

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // this calls AppcomPatActivity onCreate    
     //and crashes.
    // some initializations
}

Answer 1

add

android:largeHeap="true"

in the AndroidManifest application tag