Xamarin.Forms properties are not saved in Release on Android

Question

I'm using Xamarin.Forms and Application.Current.Properties to persist user settings. I'm testing it on Android and it works fine

• in Debug mode
• in Release mode with linker configuration set to None

But it doesn't work with linker configuration set to SDK Assemblies Only . I'm testing by deploying an APK file directly to the device. Then I try to enter some settings and restart the application - and after restart all settings are lost. I'm not using complex data types, only string and bool .

I've found a workaround suggested here: https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/30723/problems-with-application-current-properties . It suggests to ignore Xamarin.Forms.Core assembly, but it doesn't help.

When linker configuration is set to None , the APK size is huge (50mb!). I want to avoid that.

How can I persist application properties in Release build without setting linker configuration to None? Is it a known Xamarin bug?

Answer 1

First of all, from xamarin docs( https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/xamarin-forms/working-with/application-class/#Properties_Dictionary ) :

Note: the Properties dictionary can only serialize primitive types for storage. Attempting to store other types (such as List can fail silently).

If you want to store non-primitive type, you can, for example, convert it into JSON string using Newtonsoft.Json serializer, and then write to Properties(dont forget to deserialze when you read from Properties)

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Btw, there is know bug: Properties didnt work in Release mode on Android. Suggest using Settings Plugin , it works pretty well.