java.lang.ClassNotFoundException : dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass

Question

I'm continuously getting this error report in my Google Play developer console. It look like MultiDex error.

java.lang.RuntimeException: 
  at android.app.LoadedApk.makeApplication(LoadedApk.java:516)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:4514)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1500(ActivityThread.java:151)
  at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1381)
  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:110)
  at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5299)
  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method:0)
  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:829)
  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:645)
  at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method:0)

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: 
  at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:56)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:497)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:457)
  at android.app.Instrumentation.newApplication(Instrumentation.java:975)
  at android.app.LoadedApk.makeApplication(LoadedApk.java:511)

I already added this to gradle.build:

defaultConfig {
...
minSdkVersion 14
targetSdkVersion 21
...

// Enabling multidex support.
multiDexEnabled true
}

dependencies {
  compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.0'
}

 @Override
    protected void attachBaseContext(Context newBase) {
        super.attachBaseContext(newBase);
        try {
            MultiDex.install(this);
        }catch (RuntimeException e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }catch (Exception e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

I'm still getting this error in android 4.4,5.0,5.1, 6.0. Please help !!

Answer 1

There are multiple variants of the java.lang.ClassNotFoundException in Android, most of them are caused by a wrong Proguard configuration, IDE not closing correctly the previous launched instance of the device during build time etc.

Follow Unexpected crash in BaseDexClassLoader for more details.