React Native apps fail to build since NDK update to r17 (due to missing mipsel-linux-android-4.9 toolchain files)

[sunweiyang]

Description

Android React Native apps have not been able to successfully build since we updated NDK to r17. The build error shows this:

> A problem occurred starting process 'command '/Users/myuser/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle/toolchains/mipsel-linux-android-4.9/prebuilt/darwin-x86_64/bin/mipsel-linux-android-strip''

To work around this, our team had to manually replace the bare NDK r17 ~/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle/toolchains/mips64el-linux-android-4.9/ and ~/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle/toolchains/mipsel-linux-android-4.9/ directories with those of the old NDK r16. Almost all files that were once in these 2 directories bacvk in NDK r16 are completely gone in the new NDK r17.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a new React Native app called TestApp using the following commands on macOS:

brew install node
brew install watchman
npm install -g react-native-cli
react-native init TestApp

(Use this link if issues arise with Android dev environment: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/getting-started.html)
2. Open an Android emulator and build the Android app using react-native run-android
3. Observe the following build error:

:app:transformNative_libsWithStripDebugSymbolForDebug FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:transformNative_libsWithStripDebugSymbolForDebug'.
> A problem occurred starting process 'command '/Users/myuser/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle/toolchains/mipsel-linux-android-4.9/prebuilt/darwin-x86_64/bin/mipsel-linux-android-strip''

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 15.318 secs

[stephenhines]

Mips is no longer officially supported by the NDK, so you can get past this by removing those configurations from your default build. See the announcements for r17 on https://developer.android.com/ndk/downloads/revision_history.

[kneth]

@sunweiyang Does React Native support MIPS in the first place: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/ReactAndroid/src/main/jni/Application.mk#L3

[sunweiyang]

@kneth The RN codebase includes support for armeabi-v7a, which uses the mipsel-linux-android-4.9 toolchain.

[stephenhines]

@sunweiyang I'm confused. armeabi-v7a is the ABI for 32-bit ARM and mipsel* is for 32-bit MIPS targets. There are no mipsel* tools that should be used for any part of an ARM build.

[steverob]

Any updates @sunweiyang?

[krystiansliwa]

@sunweiyang I tried to use your workaround on AppCenter but it doesn't work

[sunweiyang]

@kneth @stephenhines @steverob Apologies for the confusion -- the issue seems to center around the use of AppCenter (as described in microsoft/appcenter-sdk-react-native#317).

@krystiansliwa, it looks like you were able to get the clarification you needed in microsoft/appcenter-sdk-react-native#317 as well -- glad to see it.

[alexcohn]

This problem haunts not only React Native, but many other users who download the latest NDK and don't update their Gradle plugin. This happens regardless of abiFIlters, and even for people who only have 3ʳᵈ party prebuilt native libraries.

The workaround is actually trivial, it's a pity it was not included in r17:

Add two dummy executable files /mipsel-linux-android-4.9/prebuilt/…/bin/mipsel-linux-android-strip and mips64el-linux-android-4.9/prebuilt/…/bin/mips64el-linux-android-strip.

[enh]

i'm a bit confused because i thought this was the issue @rprichard found in the betas, and that that was the workaround that's in r17?

[rprichard]

r17 has various mostly-empty directories, but no fake strip binaries:

• toolchains/mipsel-linux-android-4.9/prebuilt/${HOST_OS}
• toolchains/mips64el-linux-android-4.9/prebuilt/${HOST_OS}
• platforms/android-14/arch-mips
• platforms/android-21/arch-mips64

I'm wondering what version of the Gradle plugin is having issues here.

[enh]

yeah, microsoft/appcenter-sdk-react-native#317 just says "3.1.2 doesn't have this problem". hopefully @alexcohn's comment means he's seen this himself and can tell us what gradle version it was with?

[alexcohn]

For me, 3.0.1 failed on this.

I see many complaints on SO, and not everybody takes easily the advice "just upgrade your gradle plugin to 3.1.2" because this also means that they need to upgrade gradle to at least gradle-4.4 and then fix something else…

The difference is that the files build.gradle and gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties are under source control, and people often pull them from outdated repositories. At the same time, their Android Studio automatically installs NDK r.17 without warning them that they need now to upgrade all their modules to latest gradle plugin.

And it does work sometimes. Only the unhappy circumstance that one of their dependencies has some mips native library packaged breaks the build.