Android : shrinkResources is failing to build

Question

I m trying to use shrinkResources and its failing at the build time. I don't see any issue when I don't shrinkResources. I have following configurations:

minifyEnabled true
shrinkResources true

gradle versions

classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.3.3'
classpath 'net.sf.proguard:proguard-gradle:5.3.3' 

and

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-3.5-all.zip

.

I have also seen many people out here facing the same issue with some recommended solutions like:

• turn on minifyEnabled true in order to use shrinkResources true, which I m already doing it.
• Some recommended to turn off shrink resource by shrinkResources false in order to build the app, but I need to use shrinkResources and so it doesn't apply to me.
• There were some recommendation/suggestions that gradle plugin has/had a bug, and I should use plugin version < 2.2, which I can't at this point of time.

Highly appreciate if someone from the community helps me out here.

Below is the log that I m seeing in the gradle console:

:app:transformClassesWithShrinkResForJenkinsRelease
[Fatal Error] :1:1: Content is not allowed in prolog.

Failed to shrink resources: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Content is not allowed in prolog.; ignoring
Failed to shrink resources: ignoring
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Content is not allowed in prolog.
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:257)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:339)
    at com.android.utils.XmlUtils.parseDocument(XmlUtils.java:493)
    at com.android.utils.XmlUtils.parseDocument(XmlUtils.java:474)
    at com.android.build.gradle.tasks.ResourceUsageAnalyzer.recordResources(ResourceUsageAnalyzer.java:1177)
    at com.android.build.gradle.tasks.ResourceUsageAnalyzer.recordResources(ResourceUsageAnalyzer.java:1160)
    at com.android.build.gradle.tasks.ResourceUsageAnalyzer.analyze(ResourceUsageAnalyzer.java:276)
    at com.android.build.gradle.internal.transforms.ShrinkResourcesTransform.transform(ShrinkResourcesTransform.java:209)
    at com.android.build.gradle.internal.pipeline.TransformTask$2.call(TransformTask.java:185)
    at com.android.build.gradle.internal.pipeline.TransformTask$2.call(TransformTask.java:181)
    at com.android.builder.profile.ThreadRecorder.record(ThreadRecorder.java:102)
    at com.android.build.gradle.internal.pipeline.TransformTask.transform(TransformTask.java:176)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
    at org.gradle.internal.reflect.JavaMethod.invoke(JavaMethod.java:73)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.project.taskfactory.DefaultTaskClassInfoStore$IncrementalTaskAction.doExecute(DefaultTaskClassInfoStore.java:163)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.project.taskfactory.DefaultTaskClassInfoStore$StandardTaskAction.execute(DefaultTaskClassInfoStore.java:134)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.project.taskfactory.DefaultTaskClassInfoStore$StandardTaskAction.execute(DefaultTaskClassInfoStore.java:123)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter$1.execute(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:115)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter$1.execute(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:109)
    at org.gradle.internal.Transformers$4.transform(Transformers.java:169)
    at org.gradle.internal.progress.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.run(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:106)
    at org.gradle.internal.progress.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.run(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:56)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.executeAction(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:109)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.executeActions(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:90)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.execute(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:68)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipUpToDateTaskExecuter.execute(SkipUpToDateTaskExecuter.java:62)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ValidatingTaskExecuter.execute(ValidatingTaskExecuter.java:58)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipEmptySourceFilesTaskExecuter.execute(SkipEmptySourceFilesTaskExecuter.java:88)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ResolveTaskArtifactStateTaskExecuter.execute(ResolveTaskArtifactStateTaskExecuter.java:46)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipTaskWithNoActionsExecuter.execute(SkipTaskWithNoActionsExecuter.java:51)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipOnlyIfTaskExecuter.execute(SkipOnlyIfTaskExecuter.java:54)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteAtMostOnceTaskExecuter.execute(ExecuteAtMostOnceTaskExecuter.java:43)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.CatchExceptionTaskExecuter.execute(CatchExceptionTaskExecuter.java:34)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskGraphExecuter$EventFiringTaskWorker$1.execute(DefaultTaskGraphExecuter.java:236)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskGraphExecuter$EventFiringTaskWorker$1.execute(DefaultTaskGraphExecuter.java:228)
    at org.gradle.internal.Transformers$4.transform(Transformers.java:169)
    at org.gradle.internal.progress.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.run(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:106)
    at org.gradle.internal.progress.DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.run(DefaultBuildOperationExecutor.java:61)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskGraphExecuter$EventFiringTaskWorker.execute(DefaultTaskGraphExecuter.java:228)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskGraphExecuter$EventFiringTaskWorker.execute(DefaultTaskGraphExecuter.java:215)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.AbstractTaskPlanExecutor$TaskExecutorWorker.processTask(AbstractTaskPlanExecutor.java:77)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.AbstractTaskPlanExecutor$TaskExecutorWorker.run(AbstractTaskPlanExecutor.java:58)
    at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ExecutorPolicy$CatchAndRecordFailures.onExecute(ExecutorPolicy.java:63)
    at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.StoppableExecutorImpl$1.run(StoppableExecutorImpl.java:46)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
:app:mergeJenkinsReleaseJniLibFolders
:app:transformNativeLibsWithMergeJniLibsForJenkinsRelease
:app:validateSigningJenkinsRelease
:app:packageJenkinsRelease FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
A problem was found with the configuration of task ':app:packageJenkinsRelease'.
> File '/Users/rbc/Documents/GitLab/MyAPPName/app/build/intermediates/res/resources-jenkins-release-stripped.ap_' specified for property 'resourceFile' does not exist.  

.
.
Apart from this, if anyone think they need extra information to understand my scenario, please feel free to let me know and I will post the information as much as I could here in the question section.

Answer 1

I had a similar issue -

> Task :app:shrinkQaReleaseRes
[Fatal Error] :-1:-1: Premature end of file.

After some headscratching I realised that a previous git merge left an empty .xml file which was causing it to break. I deleted the empty file and the task succeeds now.