Repository.java

    // The view 
    getAllItemsView = Couchbase.getDatabaseInstance().getView("getAllItems");
    getAllItemsView.setDocumentType("item");
    getAllItemsView.setMap(new Mapper() {
        @Override
        public void map(Map<String, Object> document, Emitter emitter) {
            emitter.emit(document.get("title"), document);
        }
    }, "2");

   // The query 
   public List<Poco> getAll() {
        List<Poco> ret = new ArrayList<>();

        Query query = getAllItemsView.createQuery();
        //query.setPrefetch(true);
        QueryEnumerator result = null;
        try {
            result = query.run();
        } catch (CouchbaseLiteException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            Log.e("LOG", "Error querying view.", e);
            return new ArrayList<>();
        }

        for (Iterator<QueryRow> it = result; it.hasNext(); ) {
            QueryRow row = it.next();
            String docId = row.getDocumentId();
            Log.i("DR", "Found item record with id " + docId);
            Poco m = getById(docId);
            ret.add(m);
        }
     
        return ret;
    }

    private Poco getById(String docId) {
        Document document = Couchbase.getDatabaseInstance().getDocument(docId);
        Log.i("LOG", "USER PROPERTIES " + document.getUserProperties().toString());
        return mapDocumentToPoco(document);
    }

    // Creation call
    public Document create(Poco item) {
        Map<String, Object> properties = new HashMap<>();

        Document document = Couchbase.getDatabaseInstance().createDocument();

        properties.put("title", item.title);
        properties.put("type", "item");


        properties.put("subitems", poco.subitems); // subitems = arraylist of Sublist containing one string

        try {
            document.putProperties(properties);
        } catch (CouchbaseLiteException e) {
            Log.i("saveMovie", "Failed to write document to Couchbase database!");
        }

        document.createRevision();

        return document;
    }

Your code is doing some unusual things.

1. Is there a reason to emit the whole document as the value of the view? This will make the view large.
   • You retrieve the document by id anyway in getById, so it's not clear why you would emit it.
2. create always creates a new document.
   • You persist the document with the call to putProperties, then create a new revision. Is this what you want?

I don't see the code for mapDocumentToPoco. I'm not certain, but I think maybe you're recreating the document, or updating the existing one somehow without the subitem array. You could check the revision ID of your documents returned from the query to verify whether this is happening or not.