ListAdapter not refreshing RecyclerView if I submit the same list with different item order

Instead of

submitList(mySameOldListThatIModified)

You have to submit a new list like this:

ArrayList newList = new ArrayList(oldList);
newList.add(somethingNew); // Or sort or do whatever you want
submitList(newList);

It's kind of a problem with the API. We would expect ListAdapter to keep a copy of the list, but it doesn't, probably for memory reasons. When you change your old list, you are actually changing the same list that ListAdapter has stored. When ListAdapter checks if (newList != this.mList) both newList and mList are referring to the same list instance, so no matter what you have changed on that list, it will equal itself, and ignore your update.

In kotlin you can create a new list via:

val newList = oldList.toList() // Unintuitive way to copy a list
newList.first() = newList.first().copy(isFavourite = false) // Do whatever modifications you want
submitList(newList)

Note that you cannot do this:

newList.first().isFavourite = false

because that will also change the first item in your old list, and again ListAdapter won't see a difference between the first item in your old list and the first item in your new list. I would recommend that all items in your list have val properties exclusively, to avoid this problem.