"backbutton" event no longer seems to work

[AshleyScirra]

Bug Report

Problem

The backbutton event no longer seems to work.

What is expected to happen?

Adding the "backbutton" event should cause the event handler to run when pressing the back button.

What does actually happen?

The app quits (as if there was no back button handler at all).

Information

I'm pretty sure this used to work, so it seems like it's a regression in the latest version of Cordova, or may be related to the latest version of Android or API target.

Command or Code

A trivial back button test ought to demonstrate the problem.

Here's a debug APK build that demonstrates the problem in a larger example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nuxp0nq4lqm4uyw/back%20button%20test.android.debug.apk?dl=0

Touch the orange square, then press back. It should go back to the first screen, but instead it quits the app.

Environment, Platform, Device

Tested on a Pixel 3 running Android 11

Version information

Tested using cordova-android@9.0.0, built via the CLI

Checklist

• I searched for existing GitHub issues
• I updated all Cordova tooling to most recent version
• I included all the necessary information above

[C3GameDev]

Hey,
is there any plan to fix this issue?
I guess it's a problem from Android 8+, tested it with Android 10 + 11 -> error. On Android 7 it's working fine.

It's an important feature since it's required to comply with the "Android Core App Quality Guidelines"!

Thanks for the help!

[th3hamm0r]

We currently also have this issue, but in our case, the "backbutton"-event works after the user touches the app screen.

So if we register a listener for the event in "deviceready" and press the backbutton directly after the app start, on older devices (eg. Android 6), it gets fired, but on devices with Android 10 or 11 it doesn't (instead it closes the app). On those devices the user has to touch the app screen first. After that, if back is pressed, the backbutton-event fires.

We've tried it with the latest Cordova Android 9.1.0.

[NiklasMerz]

I just did a quick test on my Android 11 device and it works just fine. Make sure you are adding the even listener in "deviceready".

Maybe another plugin is interfering with the event?

[C3GameDev]

I think it's a problem with cordova splashscreen plugin, the following fixed the issue for me:
Open app->java->org.apache.cordova->splashscreen and delete line 103 ("getView().setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);")
After that everything works fine.

[erisu]

Can you try the main branch of the splashscreen plugin to see if it was fixed?

There was a commit that I believe that might have fixed the focus of the view.

apache/cordova-plugin-splashscreen@66d1e00

[NiklasMerz]

@erisu I just tested it with master. It's fixed there. Maybe we should consider releasing the plugin.

[NiklasMerz]

A new version of the splashscreen plugin has been release. This should be solved now.

https://cordova.apache.org/news/2022/04/06/splashscreen-plugin-release.html

[CodeWithOz]

I'm still having this problem despite using the latest version of the splashscreen plugin. What else could be going on?