Where is com.google.android.gms?

Question

Today I updated Android SDK components to the newest version and somehow the whole com.google.android.gms package is gone. Instead, there is only com.google.android.maps with different classes than those in gms package. Is it a big change form Google or have I done something wrong? I have been using GoogleMap and LatLng classes to work with google maps and now I have just errors in my project.

Answer 1

Is it a big change form Google or have I done something wrong?

com.google.android.gms comes from the Play Services SDK, which you attach to your application project as an Android library project. Please check your environment to ensure that you have a valid copy of the Play Services library project and that your application project still points to it.

Answer 2

First off, if you did not run any updates with Android SDK Manager make sure the google-play-services-lib' project is open in eclipse. If this doesn't fix your problem then proceed. Note: eclipse(v22.0.1-685705) will close google-play-services-lib project with a 'close unrelated projects' command. The google-play-services-lib project must be open.

I figured this problem out. Initially, you/I installed Google Play services in eclipse directly from the SDK Path, (SDK Path is displayed on the top left of Android SDK Manager). When you updated Google Play services with the Android SDK Manager it deleted the .project file and now eclipse can't find the 'google-play-services-lib' project and your development project fails to compile. :-(

Solution:

The basic ideal of this solution is to clean out the old 'google-play-services-lib' project in eclipse, which is now defunct and install a new one with the project copied from the SDK path.

Delete the old project:

In eclipse delete any 'google-play-services-lib' project. (In Eclipse see: Project properties-> Android -> Library.)

In In Eclipse see: Project properties-> Android -> Library delete the old entry for 'google-play-services-lib' project. This will most likely have an red 'X' on it.

Install a new one:

Follow the instruction from Google to install 'google-play-services-lib' project. These instruction specify to copy the project out of the SDK install folder; and then how to set up the projects.

http://developer.android.com/google/play-services/setup.html

Notes:

Your name for 'google-play-services-lib' may be different.

The key to remember is that Google play services is not a jar file. It is a project in eclipse. Your, development project references the google-play-services-lib project.

By copying the project folder from the SDK path to another location, this will keep the Android SDK Manager from deleting your eclipse .project file, and causing this problem. The draw back is if you would like to update google play services, you have to remember to do all the steps again.