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androidtagsnfcmifare

I'm getting a tag lost exception when I try writing to an NFC tag


I hope someone can tell me what I'm missing here. Maybe it's my approach to connecting. My Tag, is in fact a Mifare Ultralight so I'm not getting things wrong there. I debugged, connecting to the tag was successful - everything seemed fine. But the log keeps on saying:

android.nfc.TagLostException: Tag was lost.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    NfcAdapter mNfcAdapter;
    TextView displayInfo;
    Tag mNfcTag;
    NdefMessage mNdefMessage;

    IntentFilter [] intentFiltersArray;

    String [] [] techListsArray;

    PendingIntent pendingIntent;


    String TAG = "MainActivity";

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        mNfcAdapter = NfcAdapter.getDefaultAdapter(this);
        displayInfo = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.displayInfo);

        NdefRecord application = NdefRecord.createApplicationRecord("com.studios.nfcdemo");


        Locale locale = new Locale("en");

        NdefRecord textText = createTextRecord("pleaseWork", locale, true);

        mNdefMessage = new NdefMessage(textText);

        pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(
                this, 0, new Intent(this, getClass()).addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP), 0);

        IntentFilter ndef = new IntentFilter(NfcAdapter.ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED);
        try {
            ndef.addDataType("*/*");    /* Handles all MIME based dispatches.
                                       You should specify only the ones that you need. */
        }
        catch (IntentFilter.MalformedMimeTypeException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException("fail", e);
        }

        intentFiltersArray = new IntentFilter[] {ndef};

        techListsArray = new String[][] { new String[] { MifareUltralight.class.getName() } };




    }
    public NdefRecord createTextRecord(String payload, Locale locale, boolean encodeInUtf8) {
        byte[] langBytes = locale.getLanguage().getBytes(Charset.forName("US-ASCII"));
        Charset utfEncoding = encodeInUtf8 ? Charset.forName("UTF-8") : Charset.forName("UTF-16");
        byte[] textBytes = payload.getBytes(utfEncoding);
        int utfBit = encodeInUtf8 ? 0 : (1 << 7);
        char status = (char) (utfBit + langBytes.length);
        byte[] data = new byte[1 + langBytes.length + textBytes.length];
        data[0] = (byte) status;
        System.arraycopy(langBytes, 0, data, 1, langBytes.length);
        System.arraycopy(textBytes, 0, data, 1 + langBytes.length, textBytes.length);
        NdefRecord record = new NdefRecord(NdefRecord.TNF_WELL_KNOWN,
                NdefRecord.RTD_TEXT, new byte[0], data);
        return record;
    }

    @Override
    public void onNewIntent(Intent intent) {
        Tag tagFromIntent = intent.getParcelableExtra(NfcAdapter.EXTRA_TAG);
        MifareUltralight ultralight = MifareUltralight.get(tagFromIntent);
        write(ultralight);
    }


    private void write(MifareUltralight lol) {
        try{
            lol.connect();
            lol.writePage(0, "please work".getBytes(Charset.forName("US-ASCII")));
            Toast.makeText(this, "Tag written", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

        }
        catch (Exception e){
            Log.d(TAG, "no  " + e.toString());
        }
        finally{
            try{
                lol.close();
            }
            catch (Exception e){
                Log.d(TAG, e.toString());
            }
        }
    }

    public void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        mNfcAdapter.disableForegroundDispatch(this);
    }

    public void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        mNfcAdapter.enableForegroundDispatch(this, pendingIntent, intentFiltersArray, techListsArray);
    }
}

Solution

  • I found my error. I wanted to write Ndef messages and using the tag as MifareUltralight was a little silly as it just complicates everything. Instead, I cast the tag as an Ndef. Here's me code:

    private void write(Tag tag) {
            Ndef ndef = Ndef.get(tag);
            Locale locale = Locale.ENGLISH;
            NdefRecord hi = createTextRecord("hello world", locale, true);
            mNdefMessage = new NdefMessage(hi);
    
            try{
                ndef.connect();
                ndef.writeNdefMessage(mNdefMessage);
                Toast.makeText(this, "Message Written", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
            }
            catch (Exception e){
                Log.d(TAG, "Exception:  " + e.toString());
            }
            finally {
                try{
                    ndef.close();
                }
                catch(Exception e){
                    Log.d(TAG, ":( no  " + e.toString());
                }
            }
        }
    

    In case anyone needs to figure out how to create text records (encoded in UTF 8) and read from Ndef supported tags, I have added my methods for those as well:

    Creating text records:

    public NdefRecord createTextRecord(String payload, Locale locale, boolean encodeInUtf8) {
        byte[] langBytes = locale.getLanguage().getBytes(Charset.forName("US-ASCII"));
        Charset utfEncoding = encodeInUtf8 ? Charset.forName("UTF-8") : Charset.forName("UTF-16");
        byte[] textBytes = payload.getBytes(utfEncoding);
        int utfBit = encodeInUtf8 ? 0 : (1 << 7);
        char status = (char) (utfBit + langBytes.length);
        byte[] data = new byte[1 + langBytes.length + textBytes.length];
        data[0] = (byte) status;
        System.arraycopy(langBytes, 0, data, 1, langBytes.length);
        System.arraycopy(textBytes, 0, data, 1 + langBytes.length, textBytes.length);
        NdefRecord record = new NdefRecord(NdefRecord.TNF_WELL_KNOWN,
                NdefRecord.RTD_TEXT, new byte[0], data);
        return record;
    }
    

    Reading NDEF tags:

    private void read(Tag tagFromIntent) {
        Ndef ndef = Ndef.get(tagFromIntent);
    
        try{
            ndef.connect();
            mNdefMessage = ndef.getNdefMessage();
            NdefRecord [] records = mNdefMessage.getRecords();
            byte [] payload = records[0].getPayload();
            String displayString = getTextFromNdefRecord(records[0]);
            displayInfo.setText(displayString);
            Toast.makeText(this, "String read", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
        catch (Exception e){
            Log.d(TAG, e.toString());
        }
        finally {
            try{
                ndef.close();
            }
            catch (Exception e){
                Log.d(TAG, e.toString());
            }
        }
    

    reading text from NdefRecords:

     public String getTextFromNdefRecord(NdefRecord ndefRecord)
    {
        String tagContent = null;
        try {
            byte[] payload = ndefRecord.getPayload();
            String textEncoding = "UTF-8";
            int languageSize = payload[0] & 0063;
            tagContent = new String(payload, languageSize + 1,
                    payload.length - languageSize - 1, textEncoding);
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            Log.e("getTextFromNdefRecord", e.getMessage(), e);
        }
        return tagContent;
    }
    

    I hope this helps anyone else working with NFC. These simple methods should give you all the functionality you need within Android.