Observer that would not observe....

This is what I wasted half the night trying to solve and I failed:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5726468/contentobserver-getting-notifications-about-deletes-but-not-inserts-or-updates

Basically, I have a ListActivity that I wanted to sort. To enable sorting, I added a spinner control at the top of the screen, with sort options. When a sort option is selected, it requeries the underlying DataProvider, and the list is sorted according to user's preferences.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="fill_parent">

   <LinearLayout android:orientation="horizontal"
       android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content">

       <Spinner android:layout_width="fill_parent"
           android:layout_height="40sp" android:id="@+id/spinner_sort_activities">      
       </Spinner>

   </LinearLayout>

   <FrameLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
       android:layout_height="fill_parent">      
       <ListView android:id="@android:id/list" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
           android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:drawSelectorOnTop="true" />

       <!-- Here is the view to show if the list is empty -->
       <TextView android:text="@string/empty_list_default_value"
           android:id="@+id/txt_empty_list" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
           android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:textSize="16sp"
           android:textStyle="bold" android:gravity="center">
       </TextView>
   </FrameLayout>
</LinearLayout>

However, it does not make much sense for the Spinner to still be there when the list is empty, and the empty view is presented to the user. So I did this:

// Get a cursor to access the note
            Cursor mCursor = managedQuery(ActivityColumns.CONTENT_URI, PROJECTION, null, null,
                    getSortOrderStringFromSpinner());

            mCursor.registerContentObserver(new ContentObserver(new Handler())
            {
                @Override
                public void onChange(boolean selfChange)
                {
                    // hide the list sort drop down if no items in the list
                    if (activityListAdapter.isEmpty())
                        sortOptionsSpinner.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                    else
                        sortOptionsSpinner.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
                }

                @Override
                public boolean deliverSelfNotifications()
                {
                    return true;
                }
            });

For some reason it just does not work. I know there is a problem somewhere in my code. But I just don't know where. The observer is observing - it receives all deletes, but not inserts or updates. Frustrating.

I tried debugging, reading, googling, stack-overflowing, cursing and, finally, throwing some random code at the problem, but it still did not work. I hope to find an answer quickly, because I have some updates I wanted to publish ASAP, but I wanted to get the sorting done first.

Well, I'll spend some more time on it tonight.