Gradle build error due to Android support lib 27.1.0 usage / Program type already present

[lambourn]

CLI version: 4.2.1
Android runtime version: 4.2.0
minSdkVersion: 21
targetSdkVersion: 26

Not sure if this is a bug, but after upgrading to {N} 4.2 our release build for Android fails during Gradle's :app:transformDexArchiveWithExternalLibsDexMergerForRelease task.

Error:

D8: Program type already present: android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout$Behavior

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

• What went wrong:
  Execution failed for task ':app:transformDexArchiveWithExternalLibsDexMergerForRelease'.

It turned out that the Android support lib version used in the generated platforms/android/app/build.gradle is causing this.

Workaround was to add this to the App_Resources/Android/app.gradle file

ext {
    supportVersion = "27.1.0"
}

then compilation works fine.

[NickIliev]

Seems to be related to a known native issue

[tjvantoll]

We just hit this in an app and the posted workaround worked for us. Thanks for taking the time to write this up @lambourn!

[edusperoni]

This introduces some issues. We're using nativescript-textinputlayout, and if we use this workaround, we get this exact error on API <23:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47073632/classnotfound-android-view-viewstructure-with-support-library-26-0-2-27-0-0

Maybe it has something to do with the way {N} is inflating its components?

[edusperoni]

To reproduce this issue, download this playground:
https://play.nativescript.org/?template=play-ng&id=b8YyX3
and add the workaround

Edit: the error points to this exact line:
https://github.com/bradleygore/nativescript-textinputlayout/blob/master/src/textInputLayout.android.ts#L126

which has nothing to do with dispatchProvideAutofillStructure(ViewStructure structure, int flags). Any ideas?

[vtrifonov]

@edusperoni you are getting this error only in debug mode because of the inspector which is being started in debug. You can see more info about it here. You can try running the app and it should work on API level < 23.

[edusperoni]

@vtrifonov Unfortunately, that's not the case. Even a release build and installing the APK manually will trigger the crash.

[vtrifonov]

@edusperoni you are right, I was testing with a little bit different solution of the first problem from here. So instead of:

ext {
    supportVersion = "27.1.0"
}

I'm using this:

dependencies {
    debugImplementation "com.android.support:design:27.1.0"
}

inside the App_Resources/Android/app.gradle file

[edusperoni]

@vtrifonov this makes the release build fail with:

D8: Program type already present: android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout$Behavior

Once again.

[vtrifonov]

Ok, I see that is not fixing the issue :( However I'm not sure whether there's a workaround to make the TextInputLayout work on older devices (< API 23) with the latest support library (> 26.0.1) according to this bug report. Maybe you should create an issue in the https://github.com/bradleygore/nativescript-textinputlayout repo.

[edusperoni]

This seems to be an issue with the way Nativescript handles javascript to native code. Even without the plugin, if you try to manually create a TextInputLayout, it'll fail when you call addView. It should probably be treated as a nativescript bug, otherwise more problems will surely arise as we change support library versions.

[vtrifonov]

Can you provide a sample playground project?

[edusperoni]

https://play.nativescript.org/?template=play-ng&id=SODUNG

This will crash if you use support library 27.1.0+ on API < 23, but will show fine in API >= 23. If you remove the support lib, it won't crash, but release build will fail. If you remove the line til.addView(editText);, it won't crash.

[vtrifonov]

@edusperoni I've found what's causing the error. We are using getDeclaredMethods of the TextInputLayout class to get the list of available methods when searching the corresponding Java method of a JavaScript method call. So this call is causing the app to crash. You can reproduce the same behaviour in a native app by calling the following code:

Class<?> clazz = Class.forName("android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout");
Method[] declaredMethods = clazz.getDeclaredMethods(); 

We've found a fix for this and I hope it will be part of our next release. Thanks for helping me finding the root cause!

[edusperoni]

@vtrifonov Glad you sorted it out and found a quick fix! I'll be looking forward to the next release!

[vtrifonov]

@edusperoni you can try with the tns-android@next version now.

[edusperoni]

Just tried it and it worked on Android 4.3. Seems good!

[vtrifonov]

Great!

[Natalia-Hristova]

Fixed and will be available in the next official version of tns-android 5.0.0