Updating Android UI using threads

I am writing an Android Chat App. I am listening for connections and I receive data and I can see it in the Log.d, but whenever I try to update my UI the application crashes.

Code snippet:

private class chatReceiver implements Runnable {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        try {
            skt = new DatagramSocket(Integer.parseInt(Main.prefs.getString("port_number", "5432")));
            DatagramPacket rcvPkt = new DatagramPacket(r开发者_开发问答cvBuf,rcvBuf.length);
            String ack = "Hello from our SimpleUDPServer";
            byte[] sndBuf = ack.getBytes();
            while (true) {
                Log.d("Server received: " ,"entered loop");
                skt.receive(rcvPkt);
                String rcvMsg = new String(rcvBuf, 0, rcvPkt.getLength(), "UTF-8");
                Log.d("Server received: " ,"receiving" + rcvMsg);
                if (rcvMsg != null) {
                    Log.d("Server received: " ,"not equal null");
                    // I want to update my UI here
                }
                DatagramPacket k = new DatagramPacket(sndBuf, sndBuf.length,
                        rcvPkt.getAddress(), rcvPkt.getPort());
                skt.send(k);
                Log.d("Server sent" ,ack);

            }
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            Log.d("ThreadStart", "Error Starting thread" + ex.getStackTrace());
        }

    }
} 

and to update the UI I do use :

public static void updateUI(Bubble b, View itemView) {

    TextView txt_display_name = (TextView) itemView
            .findViewById(R.id.display_name);
    txt_display_name.setText(b.getDisplay_name());
    TextView txt_chat_body = (TextView) itemView
            .findViewById(R.id.chat_body);
    txt_chat_body.setText(b.getChat_body());
    TextView txt_creation_date = (TextView) itemView
            .findViewById(R.id.creation_date);
    txt_creation_date.setText(b.getCreation_time());
}

The application keeps crashing.

You cannot change UI elements from a non-UI thread. Try using runOnUiThread.

runOnUiThread(new Runnable(){
    @Override
    public void run(){
        // change UI elements here
    }
});

You cannot touch anything in the UI thread from a background thread, to do that use Handlers, initialize your background thread passing it a Handler object. When data arrives to use the handler to send a message to the UI. In the UI when the message from the background thread comes, just update the Views.

Example Code Snippet :

in the background thread:

if(dataArrives){
    Message msg = handler.obtainMessage();
    msg.what = UPDATE_IMAGE;
    msg.obj = bitmap;
    msg.arg1 = index;
    handler.sendMessage(msg);
}

in the UI thread:

final Handler handler = new Handler(){
  @Override
  public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
    if(msg.what==UPDATE_IMAGE){
      images.get(msg.arg1).setImageBitmap((Bitmap) msg.obj);
    }
    super.handleMessage(msg);
  }
};

and pass the handler to the background thread.

Or just use AsyncTask, it is more useful IMHO.

Use this method to update your UI from the worker thread, here it's explained well.

Note: - If you are using progressbar.setProgress(progress) you can update directly from the worker thread because the ProgressBar internally call setProgress() method using Handler.