Android toolbar menu is not showing

I was also facing the same problem, but the actual error was, i forgot to introduce toolbar in java activity

under AppCompactActivity, under on create method define your toolbar by id and call setSupportActionBar(ToolBar);

Example is bellow:

public class secondActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_second);

        Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

I’m not sure why, but when i place everything related menu inflating in onPrepareOptionsMenu method, everything works fine.

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(final Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.dashboard, menu);

    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Try the following:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
      xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
      tools:context="com.example.lolipoptest.MainActivity" >

<item
    android:id="@+id/action_settings"
    android:orderInCategory="100"
    android:showAsAction="never"
    android:title="@string/action_settings"/>
</menu>

and the Java Code:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
    return true;
}

Do you have Toolbar in your dashboard layout ?. Call setSupportActionBar(toolbar) in your activity. Use Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar theme for the activities (If you are using toolbar in it)

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
import android.view.Menu;

public class DashboardActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
  setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
  Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
  setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
  getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);
  getSupportActionBar().setHomeButtonEnabled(true);
}

@Override
 public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
  getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.dashboard, menu);
  return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
 }

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    int id = item.getItemId();
    if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
        return true;
    }
    return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}
}

Check your styles.

<resources>

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme.Base" parent="Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@color/white</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
</style>

<style name="AppTheme" parent="AppTheme.Base">

</style>

<style name="ToolbarTheme" parent="AppTheme" >
</style>

<color name="light">#FFBB33</color>
<color name="colorPrimary">#FFBB33</color>
<color name="textColorPrimary">#FFBB33</color>
<color name="colorPrimaryDark">#FF8800</color>
<color name="colorAccent">#ff9977</color>
<color name="white">#ffffff</color>

</resources>

Check your layout.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">

<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
    android:id="@+id/toolbar"
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
    app:titleMarginStart="20dp"
    android:paddingRight="10dp"
    android:background="@color/colorPrimaryDark"
    app:theme="@style/ToolbarTheme" />

<TextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginLeft="15dp"
    android:text="Hello Toolbar" />

</LinearLayout>

Add theme in your activity in manifest

android:theme="@style/AppTheme"

If you are inflating your menu from a fragment, e.g. by overriding onCreateOptionsMenu method, make sure to call setHasOptionsMenu(true) in onCreateView of your fragment

Ensure that your toolbar initialization comes after adding the xml layout file
like this:

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
Toolbar toolbar = findViewById(R.id.toolbar1);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

Try changing:

 ....
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >
 ....
app:showAsAction="ifRoom" 

to:

 ....
xmlns:yourapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >
 ....
yourapp:showAsAction="ifRoom" 

https://developer.android.com/training/basics/actionbar/adding-buttons.html

You need to inflate your menu in onCreateOptionsMenu of the activity:

 @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.mymenu, menu);
        return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
    }

If you’re using a Toolbar you need to set it as the support action bar in onCreate:

setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

The issue is resolved when I changed it to app:showAsAction to android:showAsAction

In my case it was stupid simple.
My toolbar was a child of AppBarLayout, and for some reason, when I was setting a Toolbar with Constraint layout, Toolbar’s layout_width xml parameter was set to 0dp. So the toolbar was there, but invisible… (>_<)

So, if nothing from above helped you, just check “layout_width” and “layout_height” parameters.

Hope this will save someone’s time 🙂

Add Icon you want under mipmap folder

Create menu_analysis.xml(under menu folder values.xml)

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    tools:context="com.app.android.ui.dashboard.DashboardActivity">
         <item
            android:id="@+id/action_scan_qr"
            android:icon="@mipmap/ic_menu_options"
            android:title=""
            app:showAsAction="always" />
</menu>

Now onPrepareOptionMenu under your Java class

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(final Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_analysis, menu);
    return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Although the accepted answer does work, it causes my menu items rendered twice. As I’ve just worked around this, try somethings as:

1. remember to return true; instead of super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
2. remember to set support action bar setSupportActionBar(findViewById(R.id.toolbar))
3. You might want to turn off default app title if you use customized toolbar: getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false)

Use setSupportActionBar(toolbar) in onCreate Method.

I had written like,

MenuInflater(this).inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu)

But, I changed the code like,

menuInflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu)

and it worked!

(I’m using kotlin and this code was written in Activity)

Just try this under onCreate:

toolbar.inflateMenu(R.menu.menu);