native-activity crashes on startup

[henke96]

The native-activity sample crashes on startup for me:

01-29 13:21:53.692 19506 19506 D AndroidRuntime: Shutting down VM
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime: Process: com.example.native_activity, PID: 19506
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to get provider androidx.startup.InitializationProvider: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Didn't find class "androidx.startup.InitializationProvider" on path: DexPathList[[],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/~~4YAeCpMLzSkqGKIKZ4d1ng==/com.example.native_activity-dtqDfrF_hud_ev66GpcWfw==/lib/arm64, /data/app/~~4YAeCpMLzSkqGKIKZ4d1ng==/com.example.native_activity-dtqDfrF_hud_ev66GpcWfw==/base.apk!/lib/arm64-v8a, /system/lib64, /system_ext/lib64]]
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:7478)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread.installContentProviders(ActivityThread.java:6990)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:6739)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1500(ActivityThread.java:252)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2058)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:106)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.os.Looper.loopOnce(Looper.java:346)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:475)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7890)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:548)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1009)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime: Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Didn't find class "androidx.startup.InitializationProvider" on path: DexPathList[[],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/~~4YAeCpMLzSkqGKIKZ4d1ng==/com.example.native_activity-dtqDfrF_hud_ev66GpcWfw==/lib/arm64, /data/app/~~4YAeCpMLzSkqGKIKZ4d1ng==/com.example.native_activity-dtqDfrF_hud_ev66GpcWfw==/base.apk!/lib/arm64-v8a, /system/lib64, /system_ext/lib64]]
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:259)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:379)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:312)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.AppComponentFactory.instantiateProvider(AppComponentFactory.java:147)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:7462)
01-29 13:21:53.693 19506 19506 E AndroidRuntime:        ... 11 more

After some googling i managed to work around it by editing AndroidManifest.xml.
I changed the manifest element to be:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
          android:versionCode="1"
          android:versionName="1.0">

Then i inserted the following under the application element:

<provider android:name="androidx.startup.InitializationProvider"
          android:authorities="${applicationId}.androidx-startup"
          tools:node="remove" />

[william-ferguson-au]

This fixes the issue, but I don't understand why configuring the InitializationProvider to remove all Initializers works, or is necessary. It seems like something is broken in the NativeActivity startup mechanism.

[hybcloud]

the same problem, the same solution, and the samely confused.

[hybcloud]

according to the source code's comment, the Android tends to find the initializer in the application before it starts the first activity. I guess since it is a purely native application, there is no implementation of the initializer in the application, which leads to the failure.