Android Studio: Why am i getting multi dex error on brand new Google Maps API project?

Question

I'm relatively new to Android programming and I am trying to create a Google Maps project. I used the template option in Android Studio, and I added the key for the API.

I haven't added any of my own code and left the template code as is because I just wanted to run the code and see what it looks like, however, I keep getting a multi dex error when I try to run this on the emulator causing the build to fail. It's weird to me that I am getting this error because I haven't added ANY code at all and am using what the Google Maps template has from Android Studio.

Anyone know why this error shows up on a brand new project? The error I see is pasted below.

Error:The number of method references in a .dex file cannot exceed 64K. Learn how to resolve this issue at https://developer.android.com/tools/building/multidex.html

Error:Execution failed for task ':app:transformClassesWithDexForDebug'.

com.android.build.api.transform.TransformException: com.android.ide.common.process.ProcessException: java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: com.android.ide.common.process.ProcessException: org.gradle.process.internal.ExecException: Process 'command 'C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_91\bin\java.exe'' finished with non-zero exit value 2

Answer 1

as quoted below:

Your probably compiling all of the play-services API's using compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:9.2.0'... Now we can selectively compile API's to avoid dex limit of 64K. For Google Maps use com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:9.2.0... – Loki Jul 1 at 19:01

Answer from Loki worked and was very simple to do.

Answer 2

setting up google play services

Go through this link just add the dependencies which you want in your application. This will prevent 64k exceeding error.

Happy coding.

Answer 3

For those who tried all the above methods and failed. Try changing the mini sdk version to 21 in the build.gradile file. For me it was on 16 and when I changed it to 21 the multidex error was gone for good.

minSdkVersion 21