Google Play Services 7.5.0 AnalyticsService NPE onStartCommand

Question

Has anyone run into this crash when loading Google Play 7.5.0 in their app? I'm seeing about 30 crashes a day now, without any way to reproduce. No particular Android flavour (4.4, 5, 5.1) or device (Samsung, HTC, etc..) is sticking out at me.

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start service com.google.android.gms.analytics.AnalyticsService@1153b3b0 with null:     java.lang.NullPointerException
   at android.app.ActivityThread.handleServiceArgs(ActivityThread.java:2721)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1900(ActivityThread.java:141)
   at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1353)
   at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
   at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5116)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Method.java)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:525)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:787)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:600)
   at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(NativeStart.java)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
   at com.google.android.gms.analytics.AnalyticsService.onStartCommand()
   at android.app.ActivityThread.handleServiceArgs(ActivityThread.java:2704)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1900(ActivityThread.java:141)
   at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1353)
   at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
   at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5116)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Method.java)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:525)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:787)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:600)
   at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(NativeStart.java)

This issue has also been posted on the Analytics bug tracker, but I don't expect to see any movement there for a while: https://code.google.com/p/analytics-issues/issues/detail?id=667

Here is what is in my Gradle file:

compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:7.5.0'

And in my AndroidManifest (which I think is verbatim from the Google docs):

    <receiver
        android:name="com.google.android.gms.analytics.AnalyticsReceiver"
        android:enabled="true" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.google.android.gms.analytics.ANALYTICS_DISPATCH" />
        </intent-filter>
    </receiver>

    <service
        android:name="com.google.android.gms.analytics.AnalyticsService"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:exported="false" />

Answer 1

Try with the latest Google play services SDK version. It has been fixed in Google Play services 9.2.1.