IssueTracker

Studio Build: 4.1.3 Version of Gradle Plugin: 4.1.3 Version of Gradle: 6.6.1 Version of Java: 8 OS: Windows 10

If you enabled core library desugering for the new gradle plugin and you use classes which will be touched by core library desugering inside the onCreate method of the Application class, you'll get java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError on Android 4.4.4 devices. On every device above api level 19, it will work.

I've created a sample project you can download here: https://github.com/rzetzsche/CoreLibraryDesugeringCrashOnAndroidKitkat/

For Reference:

If I try to execute the following code on an Android 4.4.4 device

class CoreApplication : MultiDexApplication() {
    override fun attachBaseContext(base: Context?) {
        //adding the new GMS causes to many Methods in APK, therefore configure Application as MultiDex
        super.attachBaseContext(base)
        MultiDex.install(this)
    }

    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()
        Optional.of("TEst")
    }
}

I'll get the folowing exception:

03-22 18:36:09.231 657-657/com.plauzeware.CoreLibraryDesugeringCrashOnAndroidKitkat E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
    Process: com.plauzeware.CoreLibraryDesugeringCrashOnAndroidKitkat, PID: 657
    java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: j$.util.Optional
        at com.plauzeware.corelibrarydesugeringcrashonandroidkitkat.CoreApplication.onCreate(Application.kt:17)
        at android.app.Instrumentation.callApplicationOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1030)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:4409)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1500(ActivityThread.java:139)
        at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1270)
        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)
        at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5086)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:785)
        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:601)
        at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

But if i wrap it in inside another class like this

class Loader {
    companion object {
        fun load() {
            Optional.of("TEst")
        }
    }
}

and will execute it like this

class CoreApplication : MultiDexApplication() {
    override fun attachBaseContext(base: Context?) {
        //adding the new GMS causes to many Methods in APK, therefore configure Application as MultiDex
        super.attachBaseContext(base)
        MultiDex.install(this)
    }

    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()
        Loader.load()
    }
}

It will run without a problem.

It seems like every interface or class, which is touched by the core library desugering and is used inside the onCreate method of the application will cause the crash, for example the Iterable interface.