Error even after installing android v4 support library in Xamarin

Question

Even after installing v4 support library from Xamarin Component Store,I get this error.I tried googling for these problems but I always get the same error in Xamarin Studio while developing android app

Answer 1

This is Xamarin Bug 32498

The problem starts when you are normally installing one of Xamarin.Android.Support.* nuget packages.

Then IDE (VS2015 for me) hangs and nothing goes well, so you're forced to shutdown the IDE. After re-openning the IDE and forcing a link to the assemblies and when it comes to build the project, it says :

package android.support.* doesn't exist

Here's what happens in the background:

First You Must Know That:

Xamarin.Android.Support.* are actually C# bindings of google support libraries (THAT ARE WRITTEN IN JAVA), so they are not completely native and they wrappers of google support libraries (for more about Xamarin C# bindings read : Binding A Java Library).

Bug Scenario:

The time the IDE hangs is the time when it starts downloading Google Support Library Sources (about 96 MB) from the internet for each of the Xamarin.Android.Support.* packages then extracting it to

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin 

Solutions:

I propose 2 solutions:

1. A friend told me that using a version other than 22.2.1 would solve the problem ( I didn't try it)

2. Manual Extracting of the package (e.g. Xamarin.Android.Support.v4):

   1. Go to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin, delete the folder with the desired library name if it exists e.g. Android.Support.v4
   2. Create a path with the desired library name C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\{LibraryName}\22.2.1 e.g. C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\Android.Support.v4\22.2.1
   3. Download Google Support Library Source from here (v16).
   4. Copy it and extract its content into C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\Android.Support.v4\22.2.10\content

   5. Open the pre-downloaded archive android_m2repository_r16, navigate to m2repository\com\android\support and go to libraryname\22.2.1 (e.g. support-v4\22.2.1. Search for and open libraryName-22.2.1.aar (e.g. support-v4-22.2.1.aar (it opens directly with WinRAR) extract the content of the file to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\{LibraryName}\22.2.10\embedded e.g. C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\Android.Support.v4\22.2.10\embedded

   6. Run the package installation nuget command

Edit

you have to keep a copy of android_m2repository_r16.zip inside C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\Android.Support.v4\22.2.10\