Debugging with Stetho

Overview

Facebook's Stetho project enables you to use Chrome debugging tools to troubleshoot network traffic, database files, and view layouts. With this library, you need to have an active emulator or device running, and you use will Chrome to connect to the device by typing chrome://inspect.

For network traffic, you can use the Network Inspector:

Any SQLite database can also be inspected using the Resources -> Web SQL tab:

Caveats: The third-party Android Async Http Client library uses the old Apache HTTP Client, which isn't supported by Stetho. This library works best with OkHttp or Retrofit. You can still however use this library for SQLite database inspection regardless.

Setup

Setup your app/build.gradle file:

// Gradle dependency on Stetho
  dependencies {
    compile 'com.facebook.stetho:stetho:1.3.1'
  }

Next, initialize Stetho inside your Application object:

public class MyApplication extends Application {
  public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    Stetho.initializeWithDefaults(this);
  }
}

If you are also using Stetho with the OkHttp or Retrofit, make sure to include the OkHttp library as well:

dependencies {
    // add below Stetho main dependency
    compile 'com.facebook.stetho:stetho-okhttp3:1.3.1' // for OkHttp library
}

You will also need to add the StethoInterceptor when constructing the OkHttpClient instance:

OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient.Builder()
    .addNetworkInterceptor(new StethoInterceptor())
    .build();

Start your emulator or device. Then visit chrome://inspect on your Chrome desktop and your emulator device should appear. Click on Inspect to launch a new window.

Click on the Network tab. Now you can start watching network traffic between your emulator or device in real-time!