[SDK 6.0.0] Hardware back button does not dismiss LinkActivity

[mzdon-cg]

The problem

In SDK 6.0.0, pressing the hardware back button while LinkActivity is displayed does not dismiss it after some progress has been made through the Plaid Layer flow. The back button appears to do nothing — the Layer UI stays on screen and the activity result is never delivered to the host activity.

This is a regression from 5.x, where back correctly dismissed the activity and delivered a LinkExit result.

Environment

Generic Android 17 emulator

Steps to Reproduce

1. Launch any standard Plaid Layer session (Plaid.createPlaidLayerSession)
2. Once the Plaid session is visible, press the hardware back button immediately, back dismisses correctly
3. Launch the session again
4. Tap any UI element inside the session to progress through the Layer flow
5. Press the hardware back button, back does not dismiss; Plaid session stays on current screen

The issue does not reproduce with sdk-core:5.5.2.

Expected Result

Pressing the hardware back button while Plaid session is displayed should dismiss it.

Screenshots

Screen.Recording.2026-07-15.at.5.56.25.AM.mov

Logs

No logs emitted when pressing back.

Code To Reproduce Issue

override suspend fun openLayer(token: String, phoneNumber: String): PlaidLinkOutcome {
    val outcome = CompletableDeferred<PlaidLinkOutcome>()
    val handshake = CompletableDeferred<Boolean>()
    pendingResult = { outcome.complete(it) }
    // layerHandshake.complete(true) called when LinkEventName.LAYER_READY event received
    layerHandshake = handshake
    startListening()

    val handler =
      Plaid.createPlaidLayerSession(
        context = context,
        configuration = LayerTokenConfiguration.Builder().token(token).build(),
      )
    handler.submit(SubmissionData(phoneNumber = phoneNumber))

    when (handshake.await()) {
      true -> {
        launcher?.launch(handler)
        outcome.await()
      }

      false -> outcome.await()
    }
}

[melissaosullivan]

Thanks for reporting this. We will address this in an upcoming release.

[mzdon-cg]

Any updates on this @melissaosullivan?

[melissaosullivan]

@mzdon-cg Sorry for the slow update here. We dug into this properly and the picture is a bit different from a regression.

The behavior you're seeing in 6.x is the intended one, and it matches what 5.x does on Android 15 and below: back closes Link if you haven't interacted with it yet, otherwise it navigates back on panes that have an in-Link back arrow and does nothing on panes that don't.

The "back dismisses Link" behavior in 5.5.2 on your Android 17 emulator was actually a bug. Android 16 enables predictive back by default for apps targeting SDK 36, and 5.x releases before 5.5.4 didn't handle that, so the system finished LinkActivity with no result. If you check the callback in that setup, onExit fires with LinkError("No result returned.") and null metadata rather than a real cancellation. That was fixed in 5.5.4 (https://github.com/plaid/plaid-link-android/releases/tag/v5.5.4), which now behaves the same as 6.x.

That said, "back does nothing" on panes without a back arrow isn't great either, and we're not going to make it close Link outright since accidental presses would drop sessions. The improvement we're building: on those panes, back will trigger the same exit flow as the X button (or the swipe-down dismissal for Layer), including the confirmation prompt where one is configured. This is a change on the Link web side, so it will roll out without an SDK update for 6.x and should also apply to 5.5.4+.

I'll keep this issue open to track that rollout and update here when it ships.

[mzdon-cg]

@mzdon-cg Sorry for the slow update here. We dug into this properly and the picture is a bit different from a regression.

The behavior you're seeing in 6.x is the intended one, and it matches what 5.x does on Android 15 and below: back closes Link if you haven't interacted with it yet, otherwise it navigates back on panes that have an in-Link back arrow and does nothing on panes that don't.

The "back dismisses Link" behavior in 5.5.2 on your Android 17 emulator was actually a bug. Android 16 enables predictive back by default for apps targeting SDK 36, and 5.x releases before 5.5.4 didn't handle that, so the system finished LinkActivity with no result. If you check the callback in that setup, onExit fires with LinkError("No result returned.") and null metadata rather than a real cancellation. That was fixed in 5.5.4 (https://github.com/plaid/plaid-link-android/releases/tag/v5.5.4), which now behaves the same as 6.x.

That said, "back does nothing" on panes without a back arrow isn't great either, and we're not going to make it close Link outright since accidental presses would drop sessions. The improvement we're building: on those panes, back will trigger the same exit flow as the X button (or the swipe-down dismissal for Layer), including the confirmation prompt where one is configured. This is a change on the Link web side, so it will roll out without an SDK update for 6.x and should also apply to 5.5.4+.

I'll keep this issue open to track that rollout and update here when it ships.

Understood. Thanks for the update.