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androidsharedpreferences

Cannot read key from SharedPreferences

So basically I have an activity (SplashActivity) that serves as a splash screen. It reads a key named username from the application's SharedPreferences, then if it finds the key, starts HomePage activity. Otherwise it starts LoginActivity. When the login is successful in LoginActivity, I am storing the username and password via this code:

SharedPreferences prefs = LoginActivity.this.getPreferences(Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
SharedPreferences.Editor editor = prefs.edit();
editor.putString("username", username);
editor.putString("password", password);
editor.apply();

The login page also has an autocomplete feature for the password field. This is how I am reading the password:

String password = this.getPreferences(MODE_PRIVATE).getString("password", "");

And I get the stored password. However, when I restart the app and run SplashActivity I can't read the password despite using the exact same code as above. Is there something wrong I am doing here?

Solution

  • Quoting the JavaDocs for getPreferences():

    Retrieve a SharedPreferences object for accessing preferences that are private to this activity.

    (emphasis added)

    So, SplashActivity cannot read a value written to the private preferences of LoginActivity.

    You probably want to switch to getSharedPreferences(), where you provide your own name that can be shared between the two activities.