ClassCastException when calling ListView.addHeaderView()?

FrameLayout and AbsListView convert their children layout params to FrameLayout.LayoutParams and AbsListView.LayoutParams. This is where the casting fails.

View header = View.inflate(this, R.layout.header_layout, null);

should fix it.

Edit:
As mentioned in the comments, changing the ViewGroup Parameter of the inflate call also makes it work:

header = inflater.inflate(R.layout.header_layout, null, false);