How do I programmatically “restart” an Android app?

Question

Firstly, I know that one should not really kill/restart an application on Android. In my use case, I want to factory-reset my application in a specific case where a server s

Answer 1

My best way to restart application is to use finishAffinity();
Since, finishAffinity(); can be used on JELLY BEAN versions only, so we can use ActivityCompat.finishAffinity(YourCurrentActivity.this); for lower versions.

Then use Intent to launch first activity, so the code will look like this:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {
    finishAffinity();
    Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), YourFirstActivity.class);
    startActivity(intent);
} else {
    ActivityCompat.finishAffinity(YourCurrentActivity.this);
    Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), YourFirstActivity.class);
    startActivity(intent);
}

Hope it helps.