Android View.getDrawingCache returns null, only null

I was having this problem also and found this answer:

v.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);

// this is the important code :)  
// Without it the view will have a dimension of 0,0 and the bitmap will be null          
v.measure(MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED), 
            MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED));
v.layout(0, 0, v.getMeasuredWidth(), v.getMeasuredHeight()); 

v.buildDrawingCache(true);
Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap(v.getDrawingCache());
v.setDrawingCacheEnabled(false); // clear drawing cache

Im using this instead.

myView.getViewTreeObserver().addOnGlobalLayoutListener(new ViewTreeObserver.OnGlobalLayoutListener() {
        @Override
        public void onGlobalLayout() {
            Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(myView.getDrawingCache());
        }
    });

if getDrawingCache is always returning null guys: use this:

public static Bitmap loadBitmapFromView(View v) {
     Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap( v.getLayoutParams().width, v.getLayoutParams().height, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);                
     Canvas c = new Canvas(b);
     v.layout(0, 0, v.getLayoutParams().width, v.getLayoutParams().height);
     v.draw(c);
     return b;
}

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6272951/371749


The basic reason one gets nulls is that the view is not dimentioned. All attempts then, using view.getWidth(), view.getLayoutParams().width, etc., including view.getDrawingCache() and view.buildDrawingCache(), are useless. So, you need first to set dimensions to the view, e.g.:

view.layout(0, 0, width, height);

(You have already set 'width' and 'height' as you like or obtained them with WindowManager, etc.)