gradle > Task :app:externalNativeBuildDebug FAILED android_gradle_build.json (No such file or directory)

Question

I am trying to build an android project from the command line using

./gradlew app:assembleDebug

However when I build the task fails with:

> Task :app:externalNativeBuildDebug FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:externalNativeBuildDebug'.
> java.io.FileNotFoundException: /Users/hcwiley/MyProject/app/.externalNativeBuild/cmake/debug/arm64-v8a/android_gradle_build.json (No such file or directory)

If I run Sync Project with Gradle Files in Android Studio it fixes the problem.

How do I do this from the command line so I don't have to launch Android Studio just for this basic thing?

Also to note, in newer versions of Gradle .externalNativeBuild has been replaced .cxx

I've already tried these to no avail:

rm -rf app/.externalNativeBuild app/build
./gradlew cleanBuildCache
./gradlew clean

My gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties:

#Mon Oct 07 16:53:24 CDT 2019
distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
distributionPath=wrapper/dists
zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-5.4.1-all.zip

Answer 1

Try rerunning all tasks using --rerun-tasks command line parameter. This will force Gradle to run all tasks while ignoring up-to-date checks. From Gradle docs:

This will force test [...or in your case, app] and all task dependencies of test to execute. It’s a little like running gradle clean test, but without the build’s generated output being deleted.