SwipeRefreshLayout setRefreshing() not showing indicator initially

Faced with same issue. My solution -

mSwipeRefreshLayout.post(new Runnable() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        mSwipeRefreshLayout.setRefreshing(true);
    }
});

See Volodymyr Baydalka's answer instead.

These are the old workarounds.

That used to work on earlier version of the android.support.v4, but from version 21.0.0 ongoing it doesn't work and still exists with android.support.v4:21.0.3 released at 10-12 December, 2014 and this is the reason.

SwipeRefreshLayout indicator does not appear when the setRefreshing(true) is called before the SwipeRefreshLayout.onMeasure()

Workaround:

calling setProgressViewOffset() on the SwipeRefreshLayout that invalidtes the circle view of the layout causing SwipeRefreshLayout.onMeasure() to be called immediately.

mSwipeRefreshLayout.setProgressViewOffset(false, 0,
                (int) TypedValue.applyDimension(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_DIP, 24, getResources().getDisplayMetrics()));
mSwipeRefreshLayout.setRefreshing(true);

UPDATE Better Workaround

Because the actionbar could got thinner when orientation changes or you have set actionbar size manually. We set the offset in pixels from the top of this view at which the progress spinner should come to reset after a successful swipe gesture to the current actionbar size.

TypedValue typed_value = new TypedValue();
getActivity().getTheme().resolveAttribute(android.support.v7.appcompat.R.attr.actionBarSize, typed_value, true);
mSwipeRefreshLayout.setProgressViewOffset(false, 0, getResources().getDimensionPixelSize(typed_value.resourceId));

UPDATE Nov 20 2014

If it's not very crucial to your app to show the SwipeRefreshLayout once the view is started. You can just post it to a time in the future by using handlers or any thing you want.

as an example.

handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {

    @Override
    public void run() {
        mSwipeRefreshLayout.setRefreshing(true);
    }
}, 1000);

or as Volodymyr Baydalka's answer mentioned.

Here is the issue in the android issue tracker. Please upvote it to show them that we need it to be fixed.

My solution is to override SwipeRefreshLayout:

public class MySwipeRefreshLayout extends SwipeRefreshLayout {

    private boolean mMeasured = false;
    private boolean mPreMeasureRefreshing = false;

    public MySwipeRefreshLayout(final Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public MySwipeRefreshLayout(final Context context, final AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    @Override
    public void onMeasure(final int widthMeasureSpec, final int heightMeasureSpec) {
        super.onMeasure(widthMeasureSpec, heightMeasureSpec);
        if (!mMeasured) {
            mMeasured = true;
            setRefreshing(mPreMeasureRefreshing);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void setRefreshing(final boolean refreshing) {
        if (mMeasured) {
            super.setRefreshing(refreshing);
        } else {
            mPreMeasureRefreshing = refreshing;
        }
    }
}

mRefreshLayout.getViewTreeObserver()
                .addOnGlobalLayoutListener(
                        new ViewTreeObserver.OnGlobalLayoutListener() {
                            @Override
                            public void onGlobalLayout() {
                                mRefreshLayout
                                        .getViewTreeObserver()
                                        .removeGlobalOnLayoutListener(this);
                                mRefreshLayout.setRefreshing(true);
                            }
                        });