I have spent last couple of hours searching for answers here but nothing seems to make it clear for me.

Here's my problem: I have a simple app with a main menu. One of the options retrieves a list of comments from a PHP server, updates the database and then displays a ListView.

Everything functions properly inside. Now, every time I press back and then start the activity again, a new thread is started. I managed to get to more than 50+ waiting threads. I'm using the DDMS tab from Eclipse to monitor the treads.

If I try to call `Looper.getLooper().quit()` or `Looper.myLooper().quit()` I get an error saying "main thread not allowed to quit".

What am I doing wrong and where/how should I be stopping the thread?

Here's the code:

```
public class RequestActivity extends Activity {

    ProgressDialog pDialog;
    DatabaseHelper db;
    int userId;
    myCursorAdapter adapter;
    Thread runner = null;
    ListView list;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        userId = myApplication.getInstance().getSession().getUserId();
        setContentView(R.layout.request_list);

        db = new myProvider.DatabaseHelper(this);
        Cursor cursor = db.getRequests(userId);
        startManagingCursor(cursor);
        adapter = new myCursorAdapter(RequestActivity.this, cursor);
        list = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.list);
        list.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
        list.setAdapter(adapter);

        pDialog = ProgressDialog.show(RequestActivity.this, "", "Loading ...", true, false);

        runner = new Thread() {
            Handler handler = new Handler() {
                @Override
                public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
                    adapter.getCursor().requery(); 
                }
            };  

            public void run() {
                Looper.prepare();
                // ... setup HttpGet
                try {
                    // ... get HTTP GET response 
                    if (response != null) {
                        // ... update database
                        handler.sendEmptyMessage(0);
                    }
                } catch(Exception e) {
                    // .. log exception
                }
                Looper.loop();
            }
        };
        runner.start();
    }

    private static class ViewHolder {
        // .. view objects
    }

    private class myCursorAdapter extends CursorAdapter {
        private LayoutInflater inflater;
        public myCursorAdapter(Context context, Cursor c) {
            super(context, c);
            inflater = LayoutInflater.from(context);
        }

        @Override
        public void bindView(View view, Context context, Cursor cursor) {
            // .. bind data
            if (cursor.isLast()) {
                pDialog.dismiss();
                list.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public View newView(Context context, Cursor cursor, ViewGroup parent) {
            View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.request_list_item, parent, false);
            ViewHolder holder = new ViewHolder();
            // .. set holder View objects
            view.setTag(holder);
            return view;
        }
    }

}

```