YouTube Android Player API throws "BadParcelableException ClassNotFoundException when unmarshalling: asc" with new YouTube version

Question

Filing bug to YouTube Android Player API Library engineers: see android-youtube-api tag

Over the course of the past week and a half, I've noticed this weird BadParcelableException steadily increasing in our app and have nailed it down to YouTube's new release on android.

This crash will occur if your app is playing a youtube video, bringing your app to background, force stopping the Youtube app, and resuming your app again. Crash reproducible on Youtube version 12.19.56. Also tested on an older YouTube version 12.05.21 and the crash was not there.

Stack trace:

main Exception: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.myapp.MainActivity}: 
android.os.BadParcelableException: ClassNotFoundException when unmarshalling: asc 
Stack: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.myapp.MainActivity}: 
android.os.BadParcelableException: ClassNotFoundException when unmarshalling: asc 
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2666) 
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2727) 
at android.app.ActivityThread.-wrap12(ActivityThread.java) 
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1478) 
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102) 
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154) 
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6121) 
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method) 
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:889) 
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:779) Caused by: 
android.os.BadParcelableException: ClassNotFoundException when unmarshalling: asc 
at android.os.Parcel.readParcelableCreator(Parcel.java:2536) 
at android.os.Parcel.readParcelable(Parcel.java:2462) 
at android.os.Parcel.readValue(Parcel.java:2365) 
at android.os.Parcel.readSparseArrayInternal(Parcel.java:2813) 
at android.os.Parcel.readSparseArray(Parcel.java:2068) 
at android.os.Parcel.readValue(Parcel.java:2422) 
at android.os.Parcel.readArrayMapInternal(Parcel.java:2732) 
at android.os.BaseBundle.unparcel(BaseBundle.java:269) 
at android.os.Bundle.getSparseParcelableArray(Bundle.java:934) 
at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1208) 
at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveFragmentToExpectedState(FragmentManager.java:1528) 
at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(FragmentManager.java:1595) 
at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.dispatchCreate(FragmentManager.java:2893) 
at android.support.v4.app.FragmentController.dispatchCreate(FragmentController.java:190) 
at android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity.onCreate(FragmentActivity.java:353) 
at android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity.onCreate(AppCompatActivity.java:85) 
at com.myapp.BaseActivity.onCreate(BaseActivity.java:36) 
at com.myapp.MainActivity.onCreate(MainActivity.java:190) 
at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:6682) 
at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1118) 
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2619) ... 9 more

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Didn't find class "asc" on path: DexPathList[[zip file "/data/app/com.myapp-naA-_cCrz-w81rqx98ipcQ==/base.apk"],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/com.myapp-naA-_cCrz-w81rqx98ipcQ==/lib/arm64, /system/lib64, /vendor/lib64]]
at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:93)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:379)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:312)
... 32 more

Some more info:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    ...
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // Crashing here MainActivity.java:190
    ...
}

Answer 1

The problem in view state saving and restoring. Youtube app have a bug and store view state which contains instance of class asc from youtube apk. So our app can not restore it because known nothing about this class. My solution is preventing view state saving for YoutubePlayerView in YouTubePlayerSupportFragment by next code:

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle bundle) {
    super.onSaveInstanceState(bundle);

    // disable view state saving to prevent saving states from youtube apk which cannot be restored.
    View view = getView();
    if (view instanceof ViewGroup) {
        ViewGroup viewGroup = ((ViewGroup) view);
        for (int i = 0; i < viewGroup.getChildCount(); i++) {
            viewGroup.getChildAt(i).setSaveFromParentEnabled(false);
        }
    }
}

This code should be added to your subclass of YouTubePlayerSupportFragment. This solution does not remove youtube player state from bundle. So youtube player will be restored successfully.