Why Android Studio is forcing to use Androidx from Android support library?

Question

Working on a React Native project but out of sudden it stopped working & started giving an error:

Manifest merger failed : Attribute application@appComponentFactory value=(android.support.v4.app.CoreComponentFactory) from [com.android.support:support-compat:28.0.0] AndroidManifest.xml:22:18-91
is also present at [androidx.core:core:1.0.0] AndroidManifest.xml:22:18-86 value=(androidx.core.app.CoreComponentFactory).
Suggestion: add ‘tools:replace=“android:appComponentFactory”’ to <application> element at AndroidManifest.xml:7:5-117 to override.

I know Google has done with Support Library class after 28 and I know How to migrate whole project from Support Library class to AndroidX class.

My question is:

• Is there any possible way to keep using Support Library class rather than shifting to AndroidX class?

• How to fix this issue?

Answer 1

You can lock down your googleservices and firebase versions to avoid androidX.

In android/build.gradle add:

buildscript {
  ...
  ext {
    // Lock down googlePlayServicesVersion
    googlePlayServicesVersion = "16.1.0"
    firebaseVersion = "17.6.0"
  }
}

OR in gradle.properties add:

googlePlayServicesVersion=16.1.0
firebaseVersion=17.6.0

Answer 2

Probably post your app level gradle file here. Ideally if you are using some other dependency which is the updated/latest one then you would get this error.

If any of the dependency is the latest/updated one please downgrade it to the lesser version from checking the change logs from it's github. For me the culprit was stripe version which was internally using the androidx and was getting this error. i downgraded it and boom! It's gone :)

And also disable the androidx from gradle.properties file using

android.useAndroidX=false
android.enableJetifier=false

Which forces the androidx to be disabled.