Android: after close --shutdown, the emulator restarts with the test IME as its default keyboard #3318

Problem

On an Android emulator, close --shutdown leaves the agent-device test IME as the default input method. After the emulator restarts, default_input_method is still com.callstack.agentdevice.imehelper/.TestInputMethodService, and nothing reports it. That IME draws no keyboard, so a focused text field no longer opens a keyboard for whoever uses the emulator next.

~/.agent-device/android-test-ime-pending/ is empty after the restart, so the daemon treats the keyboard as restored.

Environment

• agent-device 0.21.23 (first seen on 0.21.18)
• Linux 7.0, Node 24.20.0
• Android emulator 36.5.11.0, adb 1.0.41 (platform-tools 37.0.0)
• system-images;android-32;google_apis;x86_64 (0.21.18 and 0.21.23), system-images;android-37.0;google_apis_playstore_ps16k;x86_64 (0.21.18)
• Emulator started with emulator -avd <avd> -no-snapshot-load -no-boot-anim

Reproduction

Before each run, the real keyboard is set with adb shell ime set com.google.android.inputmethod.latin/com.android.inputmethod.latin.LatinIME.

npx agent-device open com.android.settings --platform android --relaunch
npx agent-device snapshot
npx agent-device close --shutdown   # exit code 0, "Closed: default", the emulator shuts down
# restart the AVD, then:
adb shell settings get secure default_input_method

Earlier measurements on 0.21.18, API 32 and 37, with an app opened through a deep link with --relaunch --foreground:

• close --shutdown: TestInputMethodService after restart, 3 runs out of 3.
• close, then adb emu kill right away: TestInputMethodService after restart, 2 out of 2.
• close, then 3 to 7 s, then adb emu kill: LatinIME after restart, 3 out of 3.

In the control run, default_input_method already reads LatinIME right after close, while the emulator is still running. The restore does happen, but an immediate emu kill loses it.

Code path

In packages/platform-android/src/lifecycle.ts, finalizeApplicationClose awaits host.androidApplications.restoreTestIme(...), then, when shutdownTarget is set on an emulator, calls host.deviceShutdown.android.shutdownTarget(...). packages/platform-android/src/shutdown/runtime.ts then runs adb -s <serial> emu kill right away. The published dist/src/runtime2.js has the same sequence in 0.21.18 and 0.21.23. I have not measured why the restored setting does not survive the kill.

Expected behavior

After close --shutdown, the emulator restarts with the keyboard that was the default before open.