x/mobile: Gomobile is not compatible with modern Android SDKs and NDKs

[bemasc]

Gomobile makes a number of assumptions about the Android SDK and NDK that are no longer correct:

• ANDROID_HOME provides the SDK location (soft-deprecated in favor of a default path)
• Android API 15 is supported. (All supported SDKs have a minimum API version of 16 or higher)
• There is only one possible NDK to use (false under the new "side by side" NDK system)
• ANDROID_NDK_HOME provides the NDK location (hard-deprecated due to "side by side" NDK)
• $ANDROID_HOME/ndk-bundle is the default NDK location (it is now $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/<version>)
• Android binary resource packages only contain "Type" and "TypeSpec" entries (they can now contain Staged Alias Headers as well)

These assumptions seem to make Gomobile incompatible with NDK 24, and somewhat inconvenient to use with other modern SDK and NDK versions.

[bemasc]

Proposed fix at https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/mobile/+/401574

[thanm]

Thanks for the report.

[gopherbot]

Change https://go.dev/cl/401574 mentions this issue: x/mobile: modernize handling of Android SDK and NDK paths

[hyangah]

Thanks for the report and change.

What is the alternative to ANDROID_HOME now? From the latest android doc, I see ANDROID_HOME is still listed as the primary environment variable to control the location of android SDK. (ANDROID_SDK_ROOT is deprecated)
https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/variables

[changkun]

What is the alternative to ANDROID_HOME now?

The CL 244057 is relevant to this question, which may help CL 401574 further improve in updating to the latest conventions.

[elevenfive]

Thank you, I had opened a PR to solve this a different way, but can close this now.

https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/mobile/+/395354

[yash10019coder]

Proposed fix at https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/mobile/+/401574

@bemasc I am unable to find the solution this is just a simple pull request along with some change logs

[davidrenne]

I was trying to setup gomobile on my machine using this document wiki https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Mobile and what I am kind of shocked on is that there is no information about NDK prerequisites to setting up an environment. So you just try to run

$ gomobile build -target=android golang.org/x/mobile/example/basic

And get issues in regard to NDK not being installed. You install the latest via many different methods like Android Studio or brew on mac and they are too new for gomobile so it errors and says "ANDROID_NDK_HOME specifies /usr/local/share/android-ndk, which is unusable: unsupported API version 16 (not in 19..33)"

1. Shouldnt the home page of the wiki specify which version and how to install the NDK?
2. Why did the go-review link above have the status of "abandoned". Shouldnt this be an effort to keep up with the toolchains of NDK so gomobile works on the latest stuff?

Currently I am playing with r19c I downloaded from the unsupported versions and it is kind of compiling the hello world example, but osx is saying the developer is not supported when its trying to run clang and Id and other commands and I keep "allowing anyway" in security, but it keeps staying in a loop not allowing it and the build failing. Can anyone help with this issue too?

[bemasc]

@davidrenne If you don't need API 16 support, you can add -androidapi 19 and stick with the latest NDK.

[ncw]

I've come across this too recently because of this change in GitHub actions for the ubuntu image actions/runner-images#5930

Android NDK 21 will be replaced in favor of 25 on August, 1st

What is happening I think is that gomobile is now finding the newer SDK which it doesn't understand without -androidapi 19.

I added -androidapi 19 to the build and all was well so I think this is an acceptable fix.

[justinmichaelvieira]

I added -androidapi 19 to the wiki at https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Mobile#building-and-deploying-to-android , as this is now necessary with current NDK versions. If someone wants to further specify which ndk versions need -androidapi 19, there, and which do not, I think that would also be helpful.

[Duvio]

Any updates on this? This issue has now been there for one year, there is a proposed fix and it still is not resolved.

[Dorbmon]

Anything new?

[bemasc]

I believe this is issue is fixed; gomobile now uses the modern environment variables and selects a compatible NDK and SDK based on your specified targets. If you are still encountering a problem please provide more details about your setup and invocation.

[yfwz100]

It's better to add description for -androidapi to gomobile help bind so people using API level greater than 16 won't encounter incompatible problems.

[jimwei]

[like] WeiYaPeng(Jim) reacted to your message:

…

________________________________ From: Wang Zhi ***@***.***> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2023 4:58:33 AM To: golang/go ***@***.***> Cc: Subscribed ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [golang/go] x/mobile: Gomobile is not compatible with modern Android SDKs and NDKs (Issue #52470) It's better to add description for -androidapi to gomobile help bind so people using API level greater than 16 won't encounter incompatible problems. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#52470 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKTSGIJR4KH6Q4CUABGDFDXXVZHTANCNFSM5T76SGTQ>. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[alirezaac]

still got problem building with stable release of sdk and ndk and after predicting which folder the dev was puting what ndk (i'm not a golang fan just want a aar file from it) still getting more errors like this:
/root/go/bin/gomobile: No compiler for arm was found in the NDK (tried /opt/android-sdk/ndk/prebuilt/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin/armv7a-linux-androideabi21-clang). Make sure your NDK version is >= r19c. Use sdkmanager --update to update it.FATAL[0000] exit status 1
so i know single handedly i need to test all version and some people suggest you might need to rename or symlink the arm compilers files what an experience this golang is WOW.

[SebastienMelki]

Hello, I am still getting this error even though I have latest SDKs and NDKs installed from Android Studio. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

command:
gomobile bind -o -androidapi 21 app/hello.aar -target=android

error:
gomobile: no usable NDK in /Users/sebmelki/Library/Android/sdk: unsupported API version 16 (not in 21..34), open /Users/sebmelki/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle/meta/platforms.json: no such file or directory

[emadpoursina]

Hello, I am still getting this error even though I have latest SDKs and NDKs installed from Android Studio. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

command: gomobile bind -o -androidapi 21 app/hello.aar -target=android

error: gomobile: no usable NDK in /Users/sebmelki/Library/Android/sdk: unsupported API version 16 (not in 21..34), open /Users/sebmelki/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle/meta/platforms.json: no such file or directory

in new version of android studio the sdk and ndk path are changed you should set your ANDROID_NDK_HOME env variable to "C:\Users\Emad\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\ndk{latest version}"

[eferay93]

I executed "gomobile build -target=android -androidapi 24" which seems fixed the problem, but this time I have trouble during build as below

gomobile: go build -buildmode=c-shared -o C:\Users\eferay\AppData\Local\Temp\gomobile-work-1490098852\lib\armeabi-v7a\libbasic.so golang.org/x/mobile/example/basic failed: exit status 1

runtime/cgo

cgo: C compiler "C:\Program" not found: exec: "C:\Program": file does not exist

I have installed "TDM-GCC-64" and did many environment variable settings, but still I am missing something, any help would be appreciated.

[justinmichaelvieira]

@eferay93 that's a windows platform issue - clearly you've put in a path somewhere that needs to be "quoted". Windows command line often needs paths with spaces included to be within double quotes, this is not an issue related to gomobile . See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/deployment/filenames-with-spaces-require-quotation-mark

[igadmg]

Still having a problem with deprecated api version
I tried gomobile build -target=android -androidapi 26 golang.org/x/mobile/example/basic and other versions of -androidapi but the resulting apk is always targeted for version 16, at least that is how android emulator complains.
Have latest NDK 26.2.11394342 installed

---

APK Installer

The APK failed to install.
Error: INSTALL_FAILED_DEPRECATED_SDK_VERSION: App package must target at least SDK version 23, but found 16

OK