Android :: Calling Looper More Than Once Causes - Sending Message To A Handler On A Dead Thread

I am using an Executor [fixed thread pool] with my own ThreadFactory that adds a Looper:

CODE:...............

I am running a thread that makes network requests but if the network fails I would like a dialog message to be displayed to the user. This process is rather involving since it requires making AND displaying the request in the UI thread. I can wait for the user's response to the dialog by simply adding a Loop to the network thread and wait for a message to be send from the UI thread. This allows me to encapsulate the network requests in a while(tryAgain) thread. All works well except when the Looper.loop() method is called the second time (after a second network error dialog is displayed) and a message is sent by the dialog (in the UI thread) to the network thread's handler:

CODE:.............

In the AlertDialog instance is an OnClickListener:

CODE:...............

I've checked that the thread is still active with handler.getLooper().getThread().isAlive() which always returns true but it still gives me "sending message to a Handler on a dead thread". How is it that the Message/Handler has decided that the thread is dead? Shouldn't it rely on the .isAlive() method? In the end I am trying to avoid replicating the thread management build into the Android OS .