Android Packaging Problem: resources.ap_ does not exist

Question

I am trying to fix a problem in Eclipse for like 3 hours and I haven't made any progress. Tomorrow is the customer coming to look at my app, and I have no time left. This is really frustrating!

This morning when I was coding and I wanted to run my app on my device Eclipse crashed all of a sudden. 'aapt.exe has stopped working'

After this Eclipse wasn't starting anymore. It froze at the splash image.

I looked on the internet and tried different solutions like going back to Java SE 6 update 20, changing .ini file etc. in the end reinstalling Eclipse did the job.

Shortly after that the 'aapt.exe has stopped working' returned. I found a solution by changing my projects target. 1.5, 1.6, 2.2 doesn't matter, as long as it's different than the one before.

Now I get the Error generating final archive: java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\xxx\bin\resources.ap_ does not exist error.

I tried clean but that doesn't work. Deleting and automatically regenarting R.java also didn't work.

I ran the same code in Netbeans with the Android plugin and there it gives me the 'aapt.exe has stopped working' again :(

Please guys, how can I fix this?

Edit:

I think I may have found the reason. These are the error lines in the console:

org.xmlpull.v1.XmlPullParserException: Binary XML file line #3: <bitmap> requires a valid src attribute
at android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable.inflate(BitmapDrawable.java:341)
at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromXmlInner(Drawable.java:779)
at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromXml(Drawable.java:720)
at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.ResourceHelper.getDrawable(ResourceHelper.java:150)
at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.BridgeTypedArray.getDrawable(BridgeTypedArray.java:668)
at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:1846)
at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:1795)
at android.view.ViewGroup.<init>(ViewGroup.java:282)    
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:619)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:574)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1407)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:1383)
[2011-01-17 16:37:20 - gegevens.xml] Unable to resolve drawable "com.android.layoutlib.utils.ResourceValue@267e33de" in attribute "background"

The file it's talking about is 'bg.png'. It's a small png file which I repeat in a .xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:src="@drawable/bg" android:tileMode="repeat" />

This file has worked from the first time without any problems. I deleted it from the drawable folder, waited for an error message, and then added it back. The red x next to the foldername got away, but still nothing different...

Answer 1

A shot in the dark, but if it's just the one PNG file could you delete it from the project and add it back? There must be something breaking the resources file.

Answer 2

I just encountered the same error after performing an SDK update withing Eclipse (Indigo). Normally I would either delete the errors and try to rebuild or clean with success, however this time it didn't fix the problem.

Finally I went to the android sdk folder and manually updated. Upon coming back into eclipse I got the error again, but without rebuilding or cleaning I was able to launch the application onto the device by pressing play for a second time.

EDIT:Apparently this problem is intermittent, as I am now once again unable to run on the device, or export the signed apk.

SOLVED: The problem stems from a corruption in the .metadata folder. I discovered this by re-installing Indigo, but when doing so I didn't remove the original workspace folder. The problem of course showed up again. I deleted the .metadata folder completely, which effectively resets all of your eclipse configuration settings. All deployments and signing work flawlessly now. Just had to setup the environment to my liking again, which takes a few minutes as opposed to the hours I spent troubleshooting this.