force layout to refresh/repaint android?

Maybe you need:

linear.invalidate();
linear.requestLayout();

after making the layout changes.

EDIT:

Run the code on a different thread:

new Thread() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        <your code here>
    }
}.start();

And whenever you need to update the UI from that thread use:

activity.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        <code to change UI>
    }
});

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