Build: 3.0 Canary 7, AI-171.4182969, 201707142150,

AI-171.4182969, JRE 1.8.0_152-release-884-b01x64 JetBrains s.r.o, OS Windows 7(amd64) v6.1 Service Pack 1, screens 2560x1440

Since building my app with Android Studio 3, the resulting APK causes some Android system crashes at native level on certain devices. It is hardly to debug, crash happens in system code.

backtrace:
native: pc 0000000000029158 /system/lib/libc.so (dlfree+1239)
native: pc 000000000000f3c3 /system/lib/libc.so (free+10)
native: pc 0000000000012ab5 /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (android::ResStringPool::uninit()+38)
native: pc 00000000000137ef /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (android::ResXMLTree::uninit()+12)
native: pc 000000000001380d /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (android::ResXMLTree::~ResXMLTree()+4)
native: pc 0000000000010507 /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (android::AssetManager::getPkgName(char const*)+258)
native: pc 0000000000010569 /system/lib/libandroidfw.so (android::AssetManager::getBasePackageName(unsigned int)+68)
native: pc 0000000000081e9f /system/lib/libandroid_runtime.so
native: pc 000000000027b17b /data/dalvik-cache/arm/system@framework@boot.oat

This backtrace is identical on all affected devices. It may be related to how Gradle tools build resources or manifest. It wakes some sleeping dragon!

Most affected devices (from crash reports provided by Google developer console):
Galaxy S3 Neo Plus (s3ve3g)
Nexus 4 (mako)
Galaxy Grand duos (baffin)
Galaxy S3 (d2att)
Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100)
Galaxy Nexus (maguro)
Nexus 7 (2012) (grouper)
Iconia Tab A211 (picasso_e2)
and many other

I have one device myself where I can reproduce the crash. That is Samsung Galaxy Nexus I9250 (maguro) with Cyanogenmod 12.1 ROM. Both debug and release versions crash the device. The device gets to reboot loop. I can recover device by adb shell and pm uninstall command to uninstall the app.

I confirm that my app previously build using Gradle 2.x plugin doesn't crash system that way. It started exactly with Gradle 3.x plugin.

Attached are 2 versions of my app, one built with Gradle 2.x and not crashing, other build with 3.x and crashing.
You may need to find affected device to reproduce it, but I gave enough hints.
Expect that more developers will produce same affected APKs with Android Studio 3 when it's out of beta, so it's worth fixing build tools.