java.lang.RuntimeException: Exception while creating class X

com.example.myapp E/Sentiance: Failed to initialize the Sentiance SDK
    java.lang.RuntimeException: Exception while creating class d
       ...
     Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
       ...
     Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Failed resolution of: Lcom/google/android/gms/location/LocationServices;

Problem: This error is likely due to the app using a different version of the play-services-* libraries than the Sentiance SDK.

Solution: Exclude the play-services-location library used by Sentiance and include a newer version.

implementation ('com.sentiance:sdk:xxx@aar') { // xxx being the current version of the SDK that is used
    transitive = true
    exclude group: 'com.google.android.gms', module: 'play-services-location'
}
implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:16.0.0'

Version conflict or mismatch error

Problem: Our SDK has a dependency on the Google Play location services library, which itself has dependencies on various other support libraries. When your application has a dependency on a different version of a play services, support, or location library, it may result in version conflict.

Solution: Exclude the conflicting library from our SDK and include a higher version separately.

// In this example, 'com.android.support' has a conflict.
​
implementation ('com.sentiance:sdk:4.4.0@aar') {
	transitive = true
	exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'support-v4'
}

Manifest merger failed: Attribute fullBackupContent

Manifest merger failed : Attribute application@fullBackupContent value=(@xml/my_backup_rules.xml) from AndroidManifest.xml:10:9-45
        is also present at [com.sentiance:sdk:4.10.0] AndroidManifest.xml:26:9-54 value=(@xml/backup_rules).
        Suggestion: add 'tools:replace="android:fullBackupContent"' to <application> element at AndroidManifest.xml:5:5-21:19 to override.

Problem: If you have specified custom backup rules in your application's manifest using the android:fullBackupContent attribute, then you might run into an exception during the build. This is because our SDK sets its own rules in the library manifest, which causes the manifest merger to complain about the conflict.

Solution: Add the following attribute to your app's <application> tag so that the manifest merger picks your app's backup rules instead:

<manifest xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" ...>
   <application 
      ...
      tools:replace="android:fullBackupContent">

Then, add the following SDK backup rules to your backup rules XML file (location in the res/xml directory):

<exclude domain="sharedpref" path="sentiance.xml"/>
<exclude domain="database" path="sentiance-payloads"/>
<exclude domain="database" path="sentiance-payloads.db"/>
<exclude domain="database" path="sentiance"/>
<exclude domain="database" path="sentiance.db"/>

Build failure or runtime exception when using AndroidX

Problem: When using AndroidX support libraries or a Google Play Services library which depends on AndroidX libraries, you might run into the above build-time or runtime exception.

Solution: The Sentiance SDK depends on several com.android.support libraries. Therefore, you must enable Jetifier to migrate the SDK's support dependencies to the AndroidX equivalent ones. To do so, add the following lines to your project's gradle.properties file:

gradle.properties
android.useAndroidX=true
android.enableJetifier=true

Permission revoked when adding the Sentiance SDK

Problem: When adding the Sentiance SDK to an app, the READ_PHONE_STATE permission gets revoked or can no longer be acquired at runtime.

Solution: The Sentiance SDK adds this permission to the app and specifies the maxSdkVersion attribute. To remove this attribute, add the tools:remove="android:maxSdkVersion" attribute to the permission in your app's manifest:

AndroidManifest.xml
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE"
                 tools:remove="android:maxSdkVersion"/>

Exclude native libraries for unsupported architectures

Problem: When adding the Sentiance SDK to your app, your final apk may include native libraries for architectures you do not intend to support, unnecessarily increasing the size of your app.

Solution: You can restrict the architectures that you want to support by adding abiFilters to your build config. Below is an example of how to restrict it to armeabi-v7a and arm64-v8a only, in your release builds.

app/build.gradle
android {
​
  buildTypes {
    release {
       ndk {
         abiFilters = [ 'armeabi-v7a', 'arm64-v8a ' ]
       }
    }
  }
}