Android Overflow Menu Button is not visible on some phones

Question

The app runs fine. On devices with hard options menu button the menu shows up, so i know it works. On some devices it shows the overflow button at the top-right.

I my test case the device is Asus Zenphone 5 there is no hard button, i dont get a overflow button either. But when i run the showOptionsMenu() command from a button click it displays the options menu and all related events work no issues.

Menu - Xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
    <item android:id="@+id/select" android:title="Select" android:showAsAction="never"></item>
    <item android:id="@+id/add_kid" android:title="Add" android:showAsAction="never"></item>
</menu>

onCreate & onPrepare

@Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) 
    {

        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu1, menu);
        return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) 
    {
        if(!getCheckInStatus())
        {
            menu.setGroupVisible(R.id.group1,false);
        }
        else
        {
            menu.setGroupVisible(R.id.group1,true);
        }
        return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

Manifest values for the Activity

<application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
  .....

<activity
            android:name="com.my.package.MyActivity"
            android:configChanges="orientation|keyboard"
            android:label="@string/app_name"
            android:launchMode="singleInstance"

        >

        </activity>

I would really appreciate any help on this matter.

Answer 1

As i commented in vinay's answer , the reason was that i was debugging an old program written by some one else. It seems all were Activities , but i had changed the target and compile-with to 22. Once i changed the Activity to ActionBarActivity the overflow appeared on the devices with soft menu button. While those with hard options menu button did not display it.