Android NDK: no archive symbol table (run ranlib)

Question

I am updating my projects to use Android ndk 16b and it was previously using 12b (was working fine). After I updated, I am running into the following error while building the final .so:

/Users/ssk/code/client/git/thirdparty/android-ndk-r16b/android-ndk/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.9/prebuilt/darwin-x86_64/lib/gcc/arm-linux-androideabi/4.9.x/../../../../arm-linux-androideabi/bin/ld: error: jni/../../../shared-library/SharedCommon/build/arm-linux-androideabi/lib/libSharedCommon.a: no archive symbol table (run ranlib)

This is leading to a bunch of linker errors. I tried the following answers:

Android NDK: no archive symbol table

How to run ranlib on an archive built through Android.mk?

no archive symbol table (run ranlib) while building libcryptopp.a through ndk-build

with no luck.

Answer 1

You need to build static libraries with a GNU AR (like the one we include in the NDK, same directory as GCC). Darwin's AR is a BSD AR that does not automatically perform ranlib tasks.