More than one file was found with OS independent path 'META-INF/LICENSE'

Question

When I build my app, I get the following error:

Error: Execution failed for task ':app:transformResourcesWithMergeJavaResForDebug'. More than one file was found with OS independent path 'META-INF/LICENSE'

This is my build.gradle file:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
apply plugin: 'kotlin-android'
android {
    compileSdkVersion 25
    buildToolsVersion "25.0.2"
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "cn.sz.cyrus.kotlintest"
        minSdkVersion 14
        targetSdkVersion 25
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"

        javaCompileOptions{
            annotationProcessorOptions{
                includeCompileClasspath = true
            }
        }
        multiDexEnabled true
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
    packagingOptions {
 /*       exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE.txt'*/
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')
    androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:2.2.2', {
        exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'support-annotations'
    })
    compile "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jre7:$kotlin_version"
    compile "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-reflect:$kotlin_version"
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:25.3.1'
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:25.3.1'
    compile 'com.android.support.constraint:constraint-layout:1.0.2'
    debugCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android:1.5.1'
    releaseCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android-no-op:1.5.1'
    testCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android-no-op:1.5.1'
    compile 'com.github.GrenderG:Toasty:1.2.5'
    compile 'com.orhanobut:logger:1.15'

    compile 'io.reactivex.rxjava2:rxandroid:2.0.1'
    compile 'com.umeng.analytics:analytics:latest.integration'
    compile 'ai.api:libai:1.4.8'
    compile 'ai.api:sdk:2.0.5@aar'
// api.ai SDK dependencies
    compile 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.0'
    compile 'commons-io:commons-io:2.4'
    compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.1'
}

When I add this code to my build.gradle file,

  packagingOptions {
            exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
            exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
            exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
            exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
            exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE.txt'
        }

This error would be solved, but another problem will happen. Like this:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com.squareup.leakcanary.internal.HeapAnalyzerService
at com.squareup.leakcanary.LeakCanary.isInAnalyzerProcess(LeakCanary.java:145)
at cn.sz.cyrus.wemz.TestApplication.onCreate(TestApplication.kt:32)

Who has ideas how to solve this?

Answer 1

You can add this in yourProject/app/build.gradle inside android{}. The exclude function adds the named resource to the list of resources that are not packaged in the APK.

android {      
      packagingOptions {
        exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/license.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/notice.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/ASL2.0'
        exclude("META-INF/*.kotlin_module") 
      }          
}

The exclude function is deprecated in 7.0.2 and you should use something similar to this:

android {
   ...
   packagingOptions {
       resources.excludes.add("META-INF/*")
   }
}

Answer 2

In my case it was enough to exclude only path 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES' on yourProject/app/build.gradle inside android{} . Here it is

packagingOptions {
    exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
}

And then do Clean Project and Rebuild Project.

Answer 3

The solutions here didn't help me, but this link did.

If you have a library that's adding some android .so files –like libassmidi.so or libgnustl_shared.so– you have to tell gradle to pick just one when packaging, otherwise you'll get the conflict.

android {
  packagingOptions {
    pickFirst 'lib/armeabi-v7a/libassmidi.so'
    pickFirst 'lib/x86/libassmidi.so'
  }
}

I was having this issue when using a React Native app as a library in an Android project. Hope it helps

Answer 4

Basically when gradle puts together the apk file, it copies content from all the compile dependencies, It is intelligent enough to see that there is a duplicate file..coming from two different jar files. This could be any file like a.txt or META-INF/DEPENDENCIES. It might be best to exclude these files using the below, in case the file is present there only for informational purposes.

android{
    packagingOptions {
       exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
    }
}

Or if in case, the file is a mandatory file like a class file, that has been duplicated across two jar dependencies that are related to each other, it is best to find alternatives to these jars, in the way of a more compatible version.