AndroidJUnitRunner cannot create ActivityUnitTestCase's target activity

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Create a new project with Intellij 14 CE and make some changes to 
build.gradle.
android{
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.littledot.testing"
        minSdkVersion 9
        targetSdkVersion 21
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"

        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"

    }
    compileOptions {
        sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_7
        targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_7
    }
}
dependencies {
    compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:21.0.+'

    androidTestCompile('org.mockito:mockito-core:1.9.5')
    androidTestCompile('com.google.dexmaker:dexmaker:1.2')
    androidTestCompile('com.google.dexmaker:dexmaker-mockito:1.2')

    androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:2.0')
    androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test:testing-support-lib:0.1')
}

2. Write a JUnit4-style unit test.
@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class)
public class MainActivityJUnit4Test extends ActivityUnitTestCase<MainActivity> {
    public MainActivityJUnit4Test() {
        super(MainActivity.class);
    }

    MainActivity activity;

    @Before
    public void setup() throws Exception {
        injectInstrumentation(InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation());
        super.setUp();
        ContextThemeWrapper context = new ContextThemeWrapper(getInstrumentation().getTargetContext(), R.style.AppTheme);
        setActivityContext(context);
        activity = startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN), null, null);
    }

    @Test
    public void baseCase() {
        TextView tv = (TextView) activity.findViewById(R.id.tv);
        Assert.assertEquals("Hello World", tv.getText());

    }
}

3.Run the test, getting a stack trace.
junit.framework.AssertionFailedError
at junit.framework.Assert.fail(Assert.java:48)
at junit.framework.Assert.assertTrue(Assert.java:20)
at junit.framework.Assert.assertNotNull(Assert.java:218)
at junit.framework.Assert.assertNotNull(Assert.java:211)
at 
android.test.ActivityUnitTestCase.startActivity(ActivityUnitTestCase.java:147)
at 
com.sdchang.testing.MainActivityJUnit4Test.setup(MainActivityJUnit4Test.java:32)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:525)
at 
org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java
:45)
at 
org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:
15)
at 
org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:4
2)
at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:27)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runLeaf(ParentRunner.java:263)
at 
org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:68
)
at 
org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:47
)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:231)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:60)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:229)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:50)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:222)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:300)
at org.junit.runners.Suite.runChild(Suite.java:128)
at org.junit.runners.Suite.runChild(Suite.java:24)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:231)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:60)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:229)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:50)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:222)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:300)
at org.junit.runner.JUnitCore.run(JUnitCore.java:157)
at org.junit.runner.JUnitCore.run(JUnitCore.java:136)
at 
android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner.onStart(AndroidJUnitRunner.java:2
70)
at 
android.app.Instrumentation$InstrumentationThread.run(Instrumentation.java:1701)

The crash happens when startActivity() tries to initialize mMockParent = new 
MockParent(). That line throws: Can't create handler inside thread that has not 
called Looper.prepare().

Am I missing anything else to get AndroidJUnitRunner working with 
ActivityUnitTestCase? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by littledo...@gmail.com on 16 Jan 2015 at 7:31