@wreed But activate_app() does not launch the app if its already running. It will launch app if it does not find the given app running. I want to re launch the app at certain conditions irrespective its running or not.
Ok, so terminate_app and activate_app to restart the app does not work for you. Maybe no way then.
could you please tell me what is the name & version of the jar file you had used for this.
((AndroidDriver) driver).closeApp();
This solution by @Aleksei works for my issue of closing and reopening an application in a single appium session.