I ran into same problem on android 4.1.1. Looks like it is a known bug: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=25758
Anyway, as a workaround i used state change listener (when SearchView is detached from action bar, it is also closed obviously).
view.addOnAttachStateChangeListener(new OnAttachStateChangeListener() {
@Override
public void onViewDetachedFromWindow(View arg0) {
// search was detached/closed
}
@Override
public void onViewAttachedToWindow(View arg0) {
// search was opened
}
});
Above code worked well in my case.