Cordova: java.lang.IllegalStateException: compileSdkVersion is not specified.

Question

I update my cordova environment to Cordova Android 7 and got following error when cordova build android --device --verbose.

Command finished with error code 0: /usr/libexec/java_home
ANDROID_HOME=/Users/kano/Library/Android/sdk 
JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_121.jdk/Contents/Home studio Subproject Path: CordovaLib Subproject Path: app Running command: /Users/kano/git_repositories/ncdc/KuiManagementSystem/app/platforms/android/gradlew cdvBuildDebug -b /Users/kano/git_repositories/ncdc/KuiManagementSystem/app/platforms/android/build.gradle
-Dorg.gradle.daemon=true -Dorg.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048m -Pandroid.useDeprecatedNdk=true 
publishNonDefault is deprecated and has no effect anymore. 
All variants are now published. Failed to notify ProjectEvaluationListener.afterEvaluate(), 
but primary configuration failure takes precedence. 
java.lang.IllegalStateException: compileSdkVersion is not specified.
at com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkState(Preconditions.java:456)
at com.android.build.gradle.BasePlugin.createAndroidTasks(BasePlugin.java:590)
at com.android.build.gradle.BasePlugin.lambda$null$3(BasePlugin.java:555)
at com.android.builder.profile.ThreadRecorder.record(ThreadRecorder.java:81)
at com.android.build.gradle.BasePlugin.lambda$createTasks$4(BasePlugin.java:551)
at org.gradle.internal.event.BroadcastDispatch$ActionInvocationHandler.dispatch(BroadcastDispatch.java:91)

And I added following parameter but same result.

$ cordova build android --device --verbose -- --gradleArg=-PcdvCompileSdkVersion=26

Does anyone know solution or workaround?

Answer 1

By running following command

ionic cordova build android --prod --no-build

I had suddenly the same issue:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: compileSdkVersion is not specified.

Maybe your issue is different, but you should be able to track your issue down like I describe now.

---

If you read further, there is more information:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where: Script '/***/platforms/android/CordovaLib/cordova.gradle' line: 132

Which is following function:

def doExtractIntFromManifest(name) {
    def manifestFile = file(android.sourceSets.main.manifest.srcFile)
    def pattern = Pattern.compile(name + "=\"(\\d+)\"")
    def matcher = pattern.matcher(manifestFile.getText())
    matcher.find()
    println('Crashing name: ' + name) // <-- I added this line
    return new BigInteger(matcher.group(1))
}

I added a println and want to see which one crashes. And the output was (running above command to build android):

Crashing name: versionCode

Okay, I have in my config.xml following set: android-versionCode="0.0.1"

So what's going on? The RegExp does not match the pattern anymore.

var a = 'android-versionCode="1"';
var a1 = 'android-versionCode="1.0.0"';
var b = new RegExp('versionCode' + "=\"(\\d+)\"");

console.log('With Version as 1:', b.exec(a));
console.log('With Version as 1.0.0:', b.exec(a1));

And indeed the cordova manual page states it should be the following way:

https://cordova.apache.org/docs/de/latest/config_ref/

<widget id="io.cordova.hellocordova"
  version="0.0.1"
  android-versionCode="7"
  ios-CFBundleVersion="3.3.3">

---

versionCode = PATCH + MINOR * 100 + MAJOR * 10000
CFBundleVersion = "MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH"

Hopefully this will help some guys since right now this issue was viewed 3000+ times.

Answer 2

I was getting the same error as yours while using

cordova run android

I solved the problem by downgrading my android platform in project using

cordova platform remove android

then

cordova platform add android@6

for me 6 worked well