Android TextInput setting selection props beyond 0 on mount crash

[lxcid]

When I set selection props on <TextInput /> that is above 0 (e.g. { start: 1, end: 1 }), it will crash at setSpan()…

e.g.

<TextInput multiline={true} selection={{ start: 1, end: 1 }}>
 <Text>abc</Text>
</TextInput>

It seems like the text are not set before selection is applied, thereby causing the crash. Crash log stack trace provided below.

Environment

Environment:
 OS: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3
 Node: 9.2.0
 Yarn: 1.3.2
 npm: 5.5.1
 Watchman: 4.9.0
 Xcode: Xcode 9.2 Build version 9C40b
 Android Studio: 3.0 AI-171.4443003

Packages: (wanted => installed)
 react: 16.2.0 => 16.2.0
 react-native: 0.53.2 => 0.53.2

Expected Behavior

I would expect it to not crash and set the selection correctly.

Actual Behavior

It crashes with the following stack trace…

setSpan (1 ... 1) ends beyond length 0

Error while updating property 'selection' of a view managed by: AndroidTextInput

null

setSpan (1 ... 1) ends beyond length 0
updateViewProp
 ViewManagersPropertyCache.java:92
setProperty
 ViewManagerPropertyUpdater.java:129
updateProps
 ViewManagerPropertyUpdater.java:48
updateProperties
 ViewManager.java:34
createView
 NativeViewHierarchyManager.java:233
execute
 UIViewOperationQueue.java:153
dispatchPendingNonBatchedOperations
 UIViewOperationQueue.java:1010
doFrameGuarded
 UIViewOperationQueue.java:981
doFrame
 GuardedFrameCallback.java:31
doFrame
 ReactChoreographer.java:136
doFrame
 ChoreographerCompat.java:107
run
 Choreographer.java:856
doCallbacks
 Choreographer.java:670
doFrame
 Choreographer.java:603
run
 Choreographer.java:844
handleCallback
 Handler.java:739
dispatchMessage
 Handler.java:95
loop
 Looper.java:148
main
 ActivityThread.java:5417
invoke
 Method.java
run
 ZygoteInit.java:726
main
 ZygoteInit.java:616

Steps to Reproduce

https://snack.expo.io/@lxcid/textinput-selection-crash

Open the snack in Android and uncomment the line with selection={{ start: 1, end: 1 }}…

<TextInput
 // selection={{ start: 0, end: 0 }} // Uncomment and it does not crash
 // selection={{ start: 1, end: 1 }} // Uncomment and it crash in android
 style={styles.paragraph}
 multiline={true}>

[react-native-bot]

Thanks for posting this! It looks like your issue may refer to an older version of React Native. Can you reproduce the issue on the latest stable release?

Thank you for your contributions.

_{How to Contribute • What to Expect from Maintainers}

[akalin-keybase]

Previous discussion: #17236

[akalin-keybase]

I have a workaround in https://github.com/akalin-keybase/rn-text-input-bugs , which is to wait for the next onSelectionChange event and set the selection there. Per the bug I linked above, this crash also happens if you set the text and selection at the same time, and the selection is out of bounds of the old text.

If the text box has focus, Android seems to fire onSelectionChange after the new text is applied, so that's why the workaround works. If the text box doesn't have focus (e.g., you're changing the text programmatically) an onSelectionChange isn't fired, but the selection isn't visible anyway, so it's safe to wait until the user focuses (which triggers an onSelectionChange) to set the new selection.