Class GAD_GTMStringEncoding is implemented in both <framework> and <app>. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined

Question

I have an iOS project in Xcode. It contains a load of linked libraries including GoogleInteractiveMediaAds.framework as well as an internal player library that I believe is also linked against this framework. Both are also embedded binaries.

The project compiles just fine but at runtime I get the following error:

Class GAD_GTMStringEncoding is implemented in both /GoogleInteractiveMediaAds.framework/GoogleInteractiveMediaAds and APP_PATH. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

On simulator the app works as expected every time despite this warning - I get the pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads that I'm expecting. Every time. On device it's a different story with the ads sometimes working and sometimes not. I'm aware that the above issue results in different behaviour on different targets and I suspect this conflict is to blame for the broken functionality on devices.

Solutions I've found here on SO suggest either changing the namespaces or removing the linkage from either my app or the library that I'm linking against. The problem is, if I remove the embedded binary in my project then it fails to compile:

dyld: Library not loaded:
@rpath/GoogleInteractiveMediaAds.framework/GoogleInteractiveMediaAds
Referenced from: APP_PATH
Reason: image not found
(lldb)

I've seen a few people suggest what would be removing the linkage from the app and using the player's internal instance (where I then have to hope that the player is compiled against the version that I need), but how on earth do you do that? And would that even work in this case?

Also, is there a way to find out for sure where this other instance of GoogleInteractiveMediaAds.framework is coming from? I'm only assuming that it's inside the internal player library but I don't know for sure as I don't have the source. The error message just provides me with the path to the compiled app which is of little help since there's like 30 linked libraries inside it.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

After initially insisting that the issue was somewhere in our code, the Google team responsible for this framework were eventually forced to admit (after we provided a sample app) that it was a problem with their code and not ours. It was resolved in an update.