ionic capacitor run android : Task :capacitor-app:compileDebugJavaWithJavac FAILED

Question

I have created an Ionic 6.19.1 application with the following variables.gradle file and the "ionic capacitor run android" command works perfectly and the application works perfectly:

ext {
    minSdkVersion = 26
    compileSdkVersion = 30
    targetSdkVersion = 30
    androidxActivityVersion = '1.2.0
    androidxAppCompatVersion = '1.2.0
    androidxCoordinatorLayoutVersion = '1.1.0
    androidxCoreVersion = '1.3.2
    androidxFragmentVersion = '1.3.0
    junitVersion = '4.13.1
    androidxJunitVersion = '1.1.2
    androidxEspressoCoreVersion = '3.3.0
    cordovaAndroidVersion = '7.0.0'
}

but if I replace compileSdkVersion = 30 with compileSdkVersion = 26, the "ionic capacitor run android" command produces this error:

 > Task :capacitor-app:compileDebugJavaWithJavac FAILED
[capacitor] /Users/christophe/Documents/Sources/sylva/sycub/node_modules/@capacitor/app/android/src/main/java/com/capacitorjs/plugins/app/AppPlugin.java:84: error: cannot find symbol
[capacitor] if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.P) {
[capacitor] ^
[capacitor] symbol: variable P
[capacitor] location: class VERSION_CODES
[capacitor] /Users/christophe/Documents/Sources/sylva/sycub/node_modules/@capacitor/app/android/src/main/java/com/capacitorjs/plugins/app/AppPlugin.java:85: error: cannot find symbol
[capacitor] data.put("build", Long.toString(pinfo.getLongVersionCode()));
[capacitor] ^
[capacitor] symbol: method getLongVersionCode()
[capacitor] location: variable pinfo of type PackageInfo
[capacitor] 2 errors
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] * What went wrong:
[capacitor] Execution failed for task ':capacitor-app:compileDebugJavaWithJavac'.
[capacitor] > Compilation failed; see the compiler error output for details.
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] * Try:
[capacitor] > Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace.
[capacitor] > Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.
[capacitor] > Run with --scan to get full insights.
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] * Get more help at https://help.gradle.org
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] Deprecated Gradle features were used in this build, making it incompatible with Gradle 8.0.
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] You can use '--warning-mode all' to show the individual deprecation warnings and determine if they come from your own scripts or plugins.
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] See https://docs.gradle.org/7.3.3/userguide/command_line_interface.html#sec:command_line_warnings
[capacitor] 131 actionable tasks: 36 executed, 95 up-to-date
[capacitor]         
[capacitor] BUILD FAILED in 1s
[capacitor]         
[ERROR] An error occurred while running subprocess capacitor.

Java version is "17" 2021-09-14 LTS

Gradle has been updated in Android Studio

thank you in advance for your help

Answer 1

compileSdkVersion is the version of the SDK used to compile your app. If you use compileSdkVersion 26 you are using the SDK that was released for android 8 (Android O), so it doesn't understand what VERSION_CODES.P means, because Android P was launched after Android O and didn't exist on Android O SDK.

You shouldn't use compileSdkVersion 26, the compileSdkVersion is configurable so you can use newer versions if needed, but never older versions.

Not really sure why do you want to do that, but google is going to require to use SDK 32 in August for new apps.