How to force RecyclerView.Adapter to call the onBindViewHolder() on all elements

wrap your RecyclerView in a NestedScrollView that will force all the items to be bound in advance.

<androidx.core.widget.NestedScrollView
    android:id="@+id/container"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView
        android:id="@+id/rvGrid"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:nestedScrollingEnabled="false" />
</androidx.core.widget.NestedScrollView>

The easiest solution for this problem is to scroll down to the bottom of the grid and then back up to the top. This cannot be done in the onCreate() method though because the grid is not technically visible at that time. Instead, it should be called in the onResume() method of the activity.

@Override
public void onResume(){
    super.onResume();
    VerticalGridView defectGrid = grids.get(0);
    RecyclerView.Adapter adapter = defectGrid.getAdapter();
    defectGrid.smoothScrollToPosition(adapter.getItemCount()-1);
    defectGrid.smoothScrollToPosition(0);
}

This was a good attempt at a solution but unfortunately it still does not work. While it does get the reference to make the method work, it does NOT necessarily have the right reference. I found that the reference can end up pointing at a different TextView as the RecycleView.Adapter reuses views to display them in different areas.

SOLUTION:

Mark Keen was right when he said to use notifyDataSetChanged(). I got it to work by fixing my onBindViewHolder() method to work properly.

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder, int position) {
    final ViewHolder viewHolder = (ViewHolder) holder;
    viewHolder.txtCategoryName.setText(categories.get(position).getStrCategory());
    viewHolder.txtCategoryDefectTotal.setText(String.valueOf(categories.get(position).getTotalDefectsInCategory()));
}

I also changed my data object so it holds an int value instead of a reference to the TextView since the above proved that reference was invalid. Finally, I added a call to my Adapter when I pressed my custom back button.

grids.get(0).getAdapter().notifyDataSetChanged();

Thank you everyone who contributed!

Just reset the Adapter like this

RecyclerView.Adapter adapter = recList.getAdapter();
recList.setAdapter(null);
recList.setAdapter(adapter);

recList should be you RecyclerView.