I'm using appcompat v7 and i had some strange issue with selectableItemBackground on Android 4.2 (api 17 mr1).
In the end i have found that the strange behaviour is caused by the mutate issue of Transition/LayerDrawable that has been fixed on api level 18.
This is the code that i'm using to solve the problem:

private static Drawable getDrawableCompat(Resources res, int id) {
Drawable d = ResourcesCompat.getDrawable(res, id, null);
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT == Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN_MR1) {
// fix for "TransitionDrawable should not become a LayerDrawable"
// https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/90e10cc58690678937575b54e1b20b899445d0e4
// issue fixed on api 18+ (mr2) and that happens only on api 17 (mr1) because of the different
// drawable constantstate/mutate handling added on api 17
// "The drawables cache strikes again"
// https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/commit/5f49c3023a512efbef8bc9515d310c7a72be4af2
if (hasLayerDrawable(d)) {
d = d.getConstantState().newDrawable();
}
}
return d;
}

public static boolean hasLayerDrawable(Drawable d) {
if (d instanceof LayerDrawable) {
return true;
} else if (d instanceof DrawableContainer) {
final DrawableContainer.DrawableContainerState cs = (DrawableContainer.DrawableContainerState)d.getConstantState();
final Drawable[] children = cs.getChildren();
if (children != null) {
for (Drawable child : cs.getChildren()) {
if (child != null) {
if (hasLayerDrawable(child)) return true;
}
}
}
}
return false;
}