SurfaceHolder.setFormat(PixelFormat.RGBA_8888) fails on some devices and not others

I have a game app with the following Views structure. First I have an empty FrameLayout like so: ``` FrameLayout game_frame_layout = new FrameLayout(getApplicationContext()); ``` Then I add two views to it like so: ``` game_frame_layout.addView(customView); game_frame_layout.addView(butView); ``` The customView is for displaying all sorts of moving game graphics while the butView displays some ImageButtons on top of the moving grapics. The customView is an instance of a class CustomView which extends SurfaceView. CustomView includes the following code ``` void updateView() { final SurfaceHolder holder = getHolder(); holder.setFormat(PixelFormat.RGBA_8888); try { Canvas canvas = holder.lockCanvas(); if (canvas != null) { onDraw(canvas); holder.unlockCanvasAndPost(canvas); } } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } ``` The line `holder.setFormat(PixelFormat.RGBA_8888);` is a recent addition (see here). Without that line, my animated graphics appear to be in a format with too few colours (by experiment I deduced it was "RGB_565"), so I get some banding artifacts. When I added the setFormat line, the graphics appear perfectly (without banding) on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Android 3.1)... but on three other devices: a Samsung GT-l9100 (4.1.2), a Nexus 7 ME370T 4.4.2 and a HTC One X 4.2.2 I only see the buttons corresponding to butView against an entirely black background. There is no indication in the logs that the program has crashed. Any ideas?