Handling ViewModel State in Kotlin with Navigation Component and SavedStateHandle
I'm deploying to production and I'm testing a new approach and I'm encountering a problem with preserving ViewModel state when navigating between fragments using the Navigation Component in my Kotlin Android app. Specifically, I'm using `SavedStateHandle` to store data, but it seems that after navigating back to a fragment, the ViewModel isn't retaining its state as expected. Here's a simplified version of my code: ```kotlin class MyViewModel(private val state: SavedStateHandle) : ViewModel() { var count: Int get() = state.get<Int>("count") ?: 0 set(value) { state.set("count", value) } } ``` In my fragment, I initialize the ViewModel like this: ```kotlin class MyFragment : Fragment() { private val viewModel: MyViewModel by viewModels() override fun onViewCreated(view: View, savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState) viewModel.count++ // Incrementing count on view creation // Observing for changes viewModel.state.observe(viewLifecycleOwner) { value -> // Update UI with new count } } } ``` The issue I'm facing is that when I navigate away from `MyFragment` and then return, `count` is always reset to `0`. I've tried to use `viewModel.count` in the `onViewCreated` method, but it seems like the ViewModel is being recreated instead of retaining the state. I also verified that `SavedStateHandle` is being passed correctly, but it feels like the state is not preserved properly. I already checked if I'm using the correct dependencies for the Navigation Component and ViewModel, such as: ```gradle dependencies { implementation "androidx.navigation:navigation-fragment-ktx:2.5.1" implementation "androidx.navigation:navigation-ui-ktx:2.5.1" implementation "androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-ktx:2.5.1" } ``` Is there something I'm missing in the way I'm setting up my ViewModel or the Navigation Component? Any guidance on how to properly retain ViewModel state during navigation would be greatly appreciated. For context: I'm using Kotlin on macOS. Has anyone else encountered this? I recently upgraded to Kotlin 3.11. Is there a better approach? This issue appeared after updating to Kotlin LTS. Am I missing something obvious?