It's a left-over from some old (fixed) issues: if we need to listen to changes in list-valued properties, we need to register an InvalidationListener (_not_ a ChangeListener) to reliably get notified on changes to the property: the property doesn't fire to ChangeListeners on replacing the value with an equal but not-same list.

ListCell still uses a ChangeListener to the itemsProperty, so it's listening to the wrong list on replacing that list with an equal but not same list. Simply look at the code ;-)

Anyway, example below demonstrates the issue, run and:

- click replace-items
- click on update-previous
- expected: no call to updateItem
- actual: call to updateItem

on the bright side, changing the current items updates the cell as expected:

- click on update-current
- expected and actual: updateItem called and visuals updated

This might indicate that the items listener on the cell isn't needed at all (seems to be a singularity in the cell zoo, anyway) - any update now seems to be triggered reliably by listSkin.

public class ListCellListeningToOldItems extends Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    int idCount;
    @Override
    public void start(Stage stage) {
        ObservableList<String> items = createItems(null);
        ListView<String> listView = new ListView<>(items);
       
        listView.setCellFactory(lv -> {
            System.out.println("created");
            ListCell<String> cell = new ListCell<String>() {
                @Override
                protected void updateItem(String item, boolean empty) {
                    super.updateItem(item, empty);
                    setText(item);
                    if (!empty) {
                        System.out.println("item updated to '" + item + "'" + "for " + getId());
// new RuntimeException("who's calling? \n").printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
            };
            cell.setId("cell-id: " + idCount++);
            return cell;
         });

        Button reset = new Button("Replace items to equal list");
        reset.setOnAction(e -> {
            previous = listView.getItems();
            listView.setItems(createItems(listView));
        });
        
        Button updateOld = new Button("update previous list at 0");
        updateOld.setOnAction(e -> {
            if (previous == null || previous == listView.getItems()) {
                System.out.println("same items");
                return;
            }
            previous.set(0, "changed old");
        });
        Button updateCurrent = new Button("Update current list at 0");
        updateCurrent.setOnAction(e -> {
            Object old = listView.getItems().get(0);
            listView.getItems().set(0, old + "X");
            
        });
        Parent content = new VBox(listView, reset, updateOld, updateCurrent);
        stage.setScene(new Scene(content, 200, 180));
        stage.setTitle(System.getProperty("java.version"));
        stage.show();

    }

    int count;
    private ObservableList<String> previous;
    /**
     * Creates and returns a list the is equal to but not the same as
     * the current items of the list.
     */
    protected ObservableList<String> createItems(ListView lv) {
        ObservableList<String> items = lv != null ? FXCollections.observableArrayList(lv.getItems())
                : FXCollections.observableArrayList("Foo");
        return items;
    }
}