Firebase Notification does not work with experimental gradle - firebase-notifications

Question

Fire Base messaging stops working with experimental gradle.
How to recreate the issue
Create a project to support firebase notifications
follow
https://firebase.google.com/docs/notifications/android/console-audience
Build and run. Works wonderfully well
Change the gradle to experimental build. Follow steps in Hello Jni example to change to experimental gradle. Forget adding C code for now just make the changes to support experimental gradle. Follow
https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/android-studio-jni/index.html?index=..%2F..%2Findex#0
Build and Run: Firebase cannot initialise any longer. See logs and search for firebase which indicate Firebase initialisation unsuccessful :(
Gradle version (File -> Project Structure, Project): 2.10
Android Plugin Version (File -> Project Structure, Project): None
SDK Version: “Android SDK Tools” Rev. (Tools -> Android -> SDK Manager) : 25.1.7
Module Compile Sdk Version (File -> Project Structure, Your Module): 24.0.0
Module Build Tools Version (File -> Project Structure, Your Module): 24.0.0
Any workaround please.
Thanks in advance
Thanks and Regards,
PB

Answer 1

I also faced the same problem and spend several days investigating and googling. The problem is that Google Services Gradle Plugin isn't compatible with gradle-experimental. However digging deeper I found out that this plugin doesn't do a lot, it just parses "google-services.json" and generates "app/build/generated/res/google-services/{build_type}/values/values.xml" out of it.
So I just manually generated that file "MyProject/src/main/res/values/google-services.xml"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<! -- Present in all applications -->
<string name="google_app_id" translatable="false">1:1035469437089:android:73a4fb8297b2cd4f</string>
<! -- Present in applications with the appropriate services configured -->
<string name="gcm_defaultSenderId" translatable="false">1035469437089</string>
<string name="default_web_client_id" translatable="false">337894902146-e4uksm38sne0bqrj6uvkbo4oiu4hvigl.apps.googleusercontent.com</string>
<string name="ga_trackingId" translatable="false">UA-65557217-3</string>
<string name="firebase_database_url" translatable="false">https://example-url.firebaseio.com</string>
<string name="google_api_key" translatable="false">AIzbSyCILMsOuUKwN3qhtxrPq7FFemDJUAXTyZ8</string>
<string name="google_crash_reporting_api_key" translatable="false">AIzbSyCILMsOuUKwN3qhtxrPq7FFemDJUAXTyZ8</string>
</resources>
More info can be found: https://developers.google.com/android/guides/google-services-plugin
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Just to add to xp-vit's answer (which was incredibly helpful to me) you can add another android client to your firebase project that doesn't use the experimental gradle to generate the XML for you and then you only have to change the "google_app_id" field. This is found under the {YOUR_CLIENT}/client_info/mobilesdk_app_id in the json file.
Might help avoid typos.

Answer 3

Faced the same issue. And it's a hard bug. You don't know that your Firebase events are not being sent until you turn Firebase log into Verbose mode.
For those who doesn't know how to enable Firebase logs:
In AndroidStudio in Terminal window execute the following:
adb shell setprop log.tag.FA VERBOSE
adb shell setprop log.tag.FA-SVC VERBOSE
adb logcat -v time -s FA FA-SVC
Thanks to that I found an error:
Missing google_app_id. Firebase Analytics disabled
I've double checked everything but then I found a ticket in Android bug tracker saying that experimental gradle interferes with Firebase Analytics.
In order to resolve this I've migrated from 'com.android.tools.build:gradle-experimental:0.8.3' to the latest stable regular Gradle plugin 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.3'.
And everything works like a charm.
So this is how you migrate from experimental gradle plugin to the latest stable plugin v. 2.2.3:
1. Update your gradle scripts.
http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/gradle-experimental/migrate-to-stable In this article after you install everything in sdk mnager you need to do the following:
In your project-level build.gradle file, change the classpath dependency of the gradle plugin to 2.2.0 or higher
buildscript {
repositories {...}
dependencies {
classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.3'
}
}
Switch to Stable Gradle DSL
You only need to follow the instructions in this section of the guide if you are migrating from experimental Gradle. Since the stable version of Gradle does not use the component model mechanism, you need to change some of the DSL in your module-level build.gradle file:
At the top of your module-level build.gradle file, you need to apply the stable version of the plugin as follows:
apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
- also if you have any modules - the first line for them should be the following: apply plugin: 'com.android.library'
Remove the model{} block, including its opening and closing curly braces. The android{} block should not be enclosed within any other DSL elements.
Remove “.apiLevel” suffix from minSdkVersion and targetSdkVerion:
minSdkVersion 16
targetSdkVersion 23
Change the proguardFiles DSL to the following:
proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
Remove create(“...”) from your productFlavor configurations. For example, use the following DSL to create a “flavor1” product flavor:
-I didn't have those
productFlavors {
flavor1 {
applicationId “com.app”
}
...
}
Only define abiFilters in the ndk{} block--comment out everything else in this block. The stable plugin uses a new externalNativeBuild{} DSL to link Gradle to your CMake or ndk-build project, and set toolchain arguments and compiler flags.
- here I commented out entire ndk{} block
2. Create a CMake build script. Easy
https://developer.android.com/studio/projects/add-native-code.html#create-cmake-script
Do exact how it is told here. Right click on our model in right Project side window. New file. Create it. Paste it. I had only one C++ class so I have a very simple CMakeLists.txt file:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.4.1)
add_library(
lib-name
SHARED
my_cpp_class.cpp )
3. Link C++ Project with Gradle
Open the Project pane from the left side of the IDE and select the Android view.
Right-click on the module you would like to link to your native library, such as the app module, and select Link C++ Project with Gradle from the menu. You should see a dialog similar to the one shown below
From the drop-down menu, select either CMake or ndk-build.
If you select CMake, use the field next to Project Path to specify the CMakeLists.txt script file for your external CMake project.
! Important: if you have any other modules - do these steps for every module in your project !
And that's it. Clean your project and build it again.
Now you can use Firebase Analytics.
Basically I didn't create or told anything new, so all credits to Google.
I just put together two articles of how to do it and wrote down the steps with my comments.
It's not hard and it will give you more benefits because experimental gradle may cause some problems anytime in the future.