IssueTracker

I was able to reproduce this and saw the following exception in logcat:

2020-10-21 16:30:41.496 2023-2045/? E/WindowManager: Unhandled exception while laying out windows
    java.lang.RuntimeException: Unknown animation name: objectAnimator
        at android.view.animation.AnimationUtils.createAnimationFromXml(AnimationUtils.java:194)
        at android.view.animation.AnimationUtils.createAnimationFromXml(AnimationUtils.java:158)
        at android.view.animation.AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(AnimationUtils.java:139)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppTransition.loadAnimationSafely(AppTransition.java:632)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppTransition.loadAnimationRes(AppTransition.java:623)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppTransition.loadAnimation(AppTransition.java:1653)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppWindowToken.loadAnimation(AppWindowToken.java:2665)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppWindowToken.applyAnimationLocked(AppWindowToken.java:2573)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppWindowToken.commitVisibility(AppWindowToken.java:624)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppTransitionController.handleClosingApps(AppTransitionController.java:381)
        at com.android.server.wm.AppTransitionController.handleAppTransitionReady(AppTransitionController.java:181)
        at com.android.server.wm.RootWindowContainer.checkAppTransitionReady(RootWindowContainer.java:783)
        at com.android.server.wm.RootWindowContainer.performSurfacePlacementNoTrace(RootWindowContainer.java:621)
        at com.android.server.wm.RootWindowContainer.performSurfacePlacement(RootWindowContainer.java:567)
        at com.android.server.wm.WindowSurfacePlacer.performSurfacePlacementLoop(WindowSurfacePlacer.java:159)
        at com.android.server.wm.WindowSurfacePlacer.performSurfacePlacement(WindowSurfacePlacer.java:105)
        at com.android.server.wm.WindowSurfacePlacer.performSurfacePlacement(WindowSurfacePlacer.java:95)
        at com.android.server.wm.WindowSurfacePlacer.lambda$new$0$WindowSurfacePlacer(WindowSurfacePlacer.java:62)
        at com.android.server.wm.-$$Lambda$WindowSurfacePlacer$4Hbamt-LFcbu8AoZBoOZN_LveKQ.run(Unknown Source:2)
        at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:883)
        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:100)
        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:214)
        at android.os.HandlerThread.run(HandlerThread.java:67)
        at com.android.server.ServiceThread.run(ServiceThread.java:44)

Indicating that the system's WindowManager that handles launching the activity is not able to handle the Animator resources now used for the default animations by NavigationUI in Navigation 2.3.1.

As a workaround, you can manually check for whether the destination is an <activity> destination and navigate() to it without any custom Animators:

override fun onOptionsItemSelected(item: MenuItem): Boolean {
    val navController = findNavController(R.id.nav_host_fragment)
    if (navController.currentDestination?.parent?.findNode(item.itemId) is ActivityNavigator.Destination) {
        navController.navigate(item.itemId)
        return true
    }
    return item.onNavDestinationSelected(navController) ||
            super.onOptionsItemSelected(item)
}

(note that you probably want to add android:menuCategory="secondary" to your menu item for these types of cases when you are able to switch back to onNavDestinationSelected to avoid popping back to the start destination as per the onNavDestinationSelected() documentation).

This has been fixed internally and will be available as part of the Navigation 2.3.2 release.