onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu not called on orientation change

Question

In my fragment, I only want to show my Menu/MenuItems in my toolbar in landscape mode. When I change orientations, I am noticing that onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu is not being called.

In other words, my landscape layout with my menu items only works when I start in landscape mode, but not when I try to change to landscape mode (crashes when changing from portrait to landscape).

public class MyFragment extends Fragment
{
    private int orientation;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        orientation = getResources().getConfiguration().orientation;
        if (orientation == Configuration.ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE)
            setHasOptionsMenu(true);

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu, MenuInflater inflater)
    {
        if (orientation == Configuration.ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE)
            inflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);

        super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu, inflater);
    }

    @Override
    public void onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu)
    {
        initializeLandscapeMenuViews(menu);
        super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

    @Override
    public void onViewCreated(View view, Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState);          
        if (orientation == Configuration.ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT)
            initializePortraitMenuViews(view);
    }

    @Nullable
    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        return inflater.inflate(R.layout.my_layout, container, false);
    }

// other code not shown
}

The crash occurs when I try to access the views that I initialize in initializeLandscapeMenuViews() because onPrepareOptionsMenu() is never called.

I checked the order of the calls using the debugger:

Starting in landscape mode

1. onCreate
2. onViewCreated
3. onCreateOptionsMenu
4. onPrepareOptionsMenu

then, orientation change to portrait

1. onCreate
2. onViewCreated

then, orientation change back to landscape

1. onCreate
2. onViewCreated

onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu are not called

What am I missing? (Any help is appreciated).

Answer 1

Basically i am not seeing any problem with your approach. nevertheless, have you tried calling invalidateOptionsMenu()? It suppose to tell the OS you want to redraw your menus by calling onCreateOptionsMenu().

Answer 2

Edit: I thought TS was working with activities, but he's using fragments. Sorry.

If you're working with the activity: onCreateOptionsMenu and onPrepareOptionsMenu have a boolean return value. So, you nee to return a boolean (instead of void). In your current approach, you don't override the functions because of this. That's why it's seems like the functions are never called. For more info, see the API.