I'm getting the "AndroidX dependencies" error with android.useAndroidX enabled

Question

I am getting the following error while trying to build my android app:

Task :app:mergeDebugResources FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

• What went wrong: Execution failed for task ':app:mergeDebugResources'.

This project uses AndroidX dependencies, but the 'android.useAndroidX' property is not enabled. Set this property to true in the gradle.properties file and retry. The following AndroidX dependencies are detected: androidx.versionedparcelable:versionedparcelable:1.0.0, androidx.slidingpanelayout:slidingpanelayout:1.0.0, androidx.fragment:fragment:1.0.0, androidx.core:core:1.0.0, androidx.customview:customview:1.0.0, androidx.swiperefreshlayout:swiperefreshlayout:1.0.0, androidx.interpolator:interpolator:1.0.0, androidx.loader:loader:1.0.0, androidx.drawerlayout:drawerlayout:1.0.0, androidx.viewpager:viewpager:1.0.0, androidx.collection:collection:1.0.0, androidx.localbroadcastmanager:localbroadcastmanager:1.0.0, androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-common:2.0.0, androidx.arch.core:core-common:2.0.0, androidx.annotation:annotation:1.0.0, androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-livedata:2.0.0, androidx.legacy:legacy-support-core-ui:1.0.0, androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel:2.0.0, androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-livedata-core:2.0.0, androidx.legacy:legacy-support-v4:1.0.0, androidx.media:media:1.0.0, androidx.arch.core:core-runtime:2.0.0, androidx.legacy:legacy-support-core-utils:1.0.0, androidx.documentfile:documentfile:1.0.0, androidx.cursoradapter:cursoradapter:1.0.0, androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-runtime:2.0.0, androidx.coordinatorlayout:coordinatorlayout:1.0.0, androidx.asynclayoutinflater:asynclayoutinflater:1.0.0, androidx.print:print:1.0.0

I modified the project's gradle.properties file and set "android.userAndroidX" to true. But everytime I try to build again it goes back to false automatically. Is there any chance that gradle.properties is being overwritten by any other task during the build?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Presumably you are using cordova-android@8 (type cordova platform ls to find the platform versions in your project).

So you have 2 options:

1. Update to cordova-android@9 which implicitly supports AndroidX:

   cordova platform rm android && cordova platform add android@9
   

   In your config.xml add the following line:

   <preference name="AndroidXEnabled" value="true" />
   

   More details here: cordova documentation

2. Add cordova-plugin-androidx to your Cordova project, which persistently sets the native AndroidX flags for cordova-android@8:

   cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-androidx
   

If after adding one of these your project still fails to build, it may be because it contains Cordova plugins whose native Android code references the legacy Android Support Library (to which AndroidX is the successor). To resolve this, you can add cordova-plugin-androidx-adapter to your project which will dynamically patch the source code of those plugins to migrate them to AndroidX:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-androidx-adapter

Answer 2

In your config.xml add the following line:

<preference name="AndroidXEnabled" value="true" />

More details here: cordova documentation