Ionic v2 Google Maps API Android Build Error: cannot access AbstractSafeParcelable options.compassEnabled(controls.getBoolean("compass"));

Question

I'm trying to implement the Google Maps API using the Ionic docs as seen here.

I'm using the code samples exactly as supplied, but I'm getting the following error:

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 2.748 secs

Error: /path/to/platforms/android/gradlew: Command failed with exit code 1 Error output:
/path/to/platforms/android/src/plugin/google/maps/GoogleMaps.java:479: error: cannot access AbstractSafeParcelable
        options.compassEnabled(controls.getBoolean("compass"));
               ^
  class file for com.google.android.gms.common.internal.safeparcel.AbstractSafeParcelable not found
Note: Some input files use or override a deprecated API.
Note: Recompile with -Xlint:deprecation for details.
1 error

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':compileDebugJavaWithJavac'.
> Compilation failed; see the compiler error output for details

Has anyone seen/resolved this issue?

Answer 1

I was able to resolve the issue. While a lot of the suggestions I found revolved around installing missing repositories (you need Android Support Repository, Library, Play Services and Google Repository), I had all that in place. What was missing was that incorrect versioning is specified in project.properties when I used this command to add the plugin:

ionic plugin add cordova-plugin-googlemaps --variable API_KEY_FOR_ANDROID="YOUR_ANDROID_API_KEY_IS_HERE" --variable API_KEY_FOR_IOS="YOUR_IOS_API_KEY_IS_HERE"

In project.properties, I changed this:

cordova.system.library.4=com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:9.8.0
cordova.system.library.5=com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:9.8.0

To this:

cordova.system.library.4=com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:+
cordova.system.library.5=com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:+

That resolved the build error.