Flutter app crashes when it use Firestore plugin in Release mode

Question

Everything works perfectly when in debug mode. It first happened when I update Flutter version to 1.10.x I could not remember which version did I use, properly. It should be 1.7.8, it was stable. To fix it I downgrade the flutter to 1.7.8+4 and also downgrade firebase related pub packages. But error still here.

Stack Trace for Related Error, captured from gogle play console

java.lang.RuntimeException: 
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue.a (AsyncQueue.java:379)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue$$Lambda$5.run (AsyncQueue.java:2)
  at android.os.Handler.handleCallback (Handler.java:790)
  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage (Handler.java:99)
  at android.os.Looper.loop (Looper.java:164)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.main (ActivityThread.java:7000)
  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke (Method.java)
  at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run (RuntimeInit.java:441)
  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main (ZygoteInit.java:1408)
Caused by: java.lang.AbstractMethodError: 
  at com.google.protobuf.GeneratedMessageLite.a (GeneratedMessageLite.java:1319)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.proto.WriteBatch.s (WriteBatch.java:120)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.proto.WriteBatch.a (WriteBatch.java:162)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.proto.WriteBatch.a (WriteBatch.java:15)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.proto.WriteBatch$Builder.a (WriteBatch.java:835)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.local.LocalSerializer.a (LocalSerializer.java:172)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.local.SQLiteMutationQueue.a (SQLiteMutationQueue.java:188)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.local.LocalStore.a (LocalStore.java:237)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.local.LocalStore$$Lambda$2.get (LocalStore.java:8)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.local.SQLitePersistence.a (SQLitePersistence.java:195)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.local.LocalStore.a (LocalStore.java:201)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.core.SyncEngine.a (SyncEngine.java:227)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.core.FirestoreClient.a (FirestoreClient.java:200)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.core.FirestoreClient$$Lambda$11.run (FirestoreClient.java:6)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue.a (AsyncQueue.java:311)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue$$Lambda$4.call (AsyncQueue.java:2)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue.a (AsyncQueue.java:287)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue$$Lambda$3.run (AsyncQueue.java:4)
  at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call (Executors.java:457)
  at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run (FutureTask.java:266)
  at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run             
(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:301)
  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker (ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1162)
  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run (ThreadPoolExecutor.java:636)
  at com.google.firebase.firestore.util.AsyncQueue$DelayedStartFactory.run (AsyncQueue.java:205)
  at java.lang.Thread.run (Thread.java:764)

When I saw the error trace on device (in android crash report dialog) It mentioned Firebase 19.0.0

Flutter Doctor:

Doctor summary (to see all details, run flutter doctor -v):
[√] Flutter (Channel unknown, v1.7.8+hotfix.4, on Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.1069], locale en-US)

[√] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 29.0.0)
[√] Chrome - develop for the web
[√] Visual Studio - develop for Windows (Visual Studio Enterprise 2017 15.9.7)
[√] Android Studio (version 3.4)
[√] VS Code, 64-bit edition (version 1.38.1)
[√] Connected device (3 available)

• No issues found!

Error reporoducing scenario for final describe:

• Build app with flutter run --release
• App try an basic firestore call

  Firestore.instance.collection('collection-name').document('docuemnt-id').get()

• App crashes.

Also getting the same error with building with flutter build appbudle

Answer 1

Here is the solution of my nightmare.

EDIT:

Error

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.app.android, PID: 12668
java.lang.RuntimeException: Internal error in Firestore (19.0.0).
    at com.google.firebase.firestore.g.j.a(:379)
    at com.google.firebase.firestore.g.g.run(Unknown Source:2)
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:873)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6718)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:493)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:858)

To fix this error, update android.enableR8=false in gradle.properties. You need to add this row cause default value true.

Answer 2

I was facing the same problem, and the following changes to my build.gradle solved it.

android {
    compileSdkVersion 28

    ... 
    buildTypes {
        release {
            shrinkResources false
            minifyEnabled false
            signingConfig signingConfigs.release
            
        }
    }
}

Reference: https://github.com/FirebaseExtended/flutterfire/issues/1412#issuecomment-570161645

N.B. I know its not a perfect solution to disable minify. But it seems the firebase team is working on it and will be resolved in future update

Answer 3

I was able to keep android.enableR8=true by upgrading the gradle version.

android/build.gradle

from:

classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.2.1'

to:

classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.5.0'

android/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties

from:

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-4.10.2-all.zip

to:

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-5.4.1-all.zip