Gradle assembleDebug and preDexDebug fail with CircleCI

Question

I tried to assembleDebug using CircleCI, but it must fail to build(preDex). Why can't I do that?

• Using ProductFlavor(the name is production)
• Android Gradle ver.1.1.0-rc1

Problem

./gradlew assembleProductionDebug died unexpectedly Building 92%3% > :app:preDexProductionDebugaction ./gradlew assembleProductionDebug failed

circle.yml

general:
  artifacts:
    - "app/build/outputs/apk/app-production-release-unaligned.apk"
machine:
  java:
    version: openjdk7
  environment:
    ANDROID_HOME: /usr/local/android-sdk-linux

dependencies:
  pre:
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "build-tools-21.1.2"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "platform-tools"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "tools"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "extra-google-google_play_services"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "extra-google-m2repository"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "extra-android-m2repository"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "extra-android-support"
    - echo y | android update sdk --no-ui --all --filter "android-21"
    - git submodule sync
    - git submodule update --init
  cache_directories:
    - ~/.android
    - ~/android
  override:
    - ./gradlew dependencies

test:
  override:
    - ./gradlew test

deployment:
  master:
    branch: master
    commands:
      - ./gradlew assembleProductionDebug

Answer 1

I had the same issue. It turned out that I had to disable preDex for the ci builds.

Put this in the root build.gradle:

project.ext.preDexLibs = !project.hasProperty('disablePreDex')

subprojects {
    project.plugins.whenPluginAdded { plugin ->
        if ("com.android.build.gradle.AppPlugin".equals(plugin.class.name)) {
            project.android.dexOptions.preDexLibraries = rootProject.ext.preDexLibs
        } else if ("com.android.build.gradle.LibraryPlugin".equals(plugin.class.name)) {
            project.android.dexOptions.preDexLibraries = rootProject.ext.preDexLibs
        }
    }
}

Then you can build on your ci with the following command:

./gradlew ... -PdisablePreDex

Answer 2

So I had the same issue and found even though java and gradle heap sizes were being set they were not being fully respected as the dex tasks spawn a ton of fresh threads with their own heap size (check your memory log and you may see the same) If so, the method I used to fix it for Android Gradle plugin 1.3 and above was to use:

-Pcom.android.build.threadPoolSize=1 

This will stop the dexing step spawning a bunch of fresh 1G threads. There is also:

-Porg.gradle.parallel=false

But I found this to be ineffective when using multidex for some reason. For CircleCI I found this to be the most consistent build task, if a little slow. I'm sure the heap sizes can be tweaked a little further for better results:

./gradlew build -PpreDexEnable=false -Pcom.android.build.threadPoolSize=1 -Dorg.gradle.parallel=false -Dorg.gradle.jvmargs="-Xms512m -Xmx512m" -Dorg.gradle.daemon=false

Answer 3

I had a same problem, it was caused since the memory limits per a container (it is 4GB). For me, the solution was to use: gradle.properties

org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xms256m -Xmx2048m