IssueTracker

First of all thanks for this detailed issue.

This issue had been investigated thoroughly when it was first reported internally. The surprising detail in this report is that the issue is not reproducible before 1.7. I will look into this.

The main problem with POBox is the fact that it is deprecated. Since 2021 Sony has been shipping new Xperia devices with Gboard pre-installed. Although we are aware that there is still a considerable amount of users still using POBox, the described behavior is caused by POBox's noncompliant behavior with InputConnection and InputMethodManager documentation. However, this is understandable since TextView implementation was also not respecting the behavior that is expected from Editors.

Ultimately we have decided to enforce the documented behavior with specifically regards to when editors should call InputMethodManager.updateSelection. Also, although unconfirmed, there were traces of possible custom code being included in Sony OEM images that changed how InputMethodManager was notified from TextView. If POBox also depended on something like this, it would be impossible for Compose code to replicate the same unknown behavior.

Just to be sure, it is dangerous to replace Compose TextField with Android View EditText as a workaround for this issue.

Compose 1.7 has a bug that causes ANR when the focus is on EditText. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/369354336

Another View-related bug in Compose 1.7 is that an Android View is focused by calling FocusManager.clearFocus(). https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/374031296

Perhaps there is a lack of testing of Compose 1.7 in combination with Android View. There is also a possibility that there are other fatal bugs related to View.

In other words, the only options for apps targeting the Japanese market that require POBox support are to continue using Compose 1.6 or to use EditText in combination with various workarounds.

Project: platform/frameworks/support
Branch: androidx-main
Author: Halil Ozercan <halilibo@google.com>
Link:      https://android-review.googlesource.com/3317256

Fix POBox keyboard issue

Fix POBox keyboard issue 
 
Fix: 373743376 
Fix: 329209241 
Test: NullableInputConnectionWrapperTest 
Change-Id: I94e0e598274fb88b255f977f9fbd50dfbbb1ecb1

Many thanks again for this report. Especially for giving us a huge clue in terms of what could be going wrong. The fix is now merged and I will ask for a cherry-pick into a stable release.

Yes, this fix is planned to be included in a future 1.7.x release.

Thanks for the fix. Sorry to follow up on this. is it possible for you to share specific release version/date for the stable version? We are waiting on this to decide on our direction.

The following release(s) address this bug.It is possible this bug has only been partially addressed:

• androidx.compose.foundation:foundation:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.foundation:foundation-android:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.foundation:foundation-desktop:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.material:material:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.material:material-android:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.material:material-desktop:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.material3:material3:1.3.0-alpha03
• androidx.compose.material3:material3-android:1.3.0-alpha03
• androidx.compose.material3:material3-desktop:1.3.0-alpha03
• androidx.compose.ui:ui:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.ui:ui-android:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.ui:ui-desktop:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.ui:ui-test:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.ui:ui-test-android:1.7.0-alpha05
• androidx.compose.ui:ui-test-desktop:1.7.0-alpha05

To anybody wondering how this could be achieved I found the correct usage on StackOverflow:

var inputConnection by remember { mutableStateOf<InputConnection?>(null) }

InterceptPlatformTextInput(
    interceptor = { request, nextHandler ->
        // if you want to disable the keyboard
        inputConnection = request.createInputConnection(EditorInfo())
        awaitCancellation()

        // if you want to keep the keyboard
        nextHandler.startInputMethod { outAttributes ->
            request.createInputConnection(outAttributes)
                .also { inputConnection = it }
        }
    },
    content = {
        TextField(...)
    },
)

Button(
    onClick = { inputConnection?.commitText("hello", 5) },
    content = { Text("test") },
)