Android build has become very slow and unstable

[burekas7]

If you are looking for help, please confirm the following...

• I confirm I have searched the Docs, Codemagic Sample Projects, and GitHub Discussions.
• I confirm the software versions on my local computer match the ones in CI environment (e.g. Xcode version, Gradle version). See here
• I confirm I am able to do a fresh clone of the repository and build the project on my local computer.

Which mobile framework are you using?

Flutter (Dart)

Steps to reproduce

Recently the Android build has become very slow.

The only change was a change in the JAVA version:
17, instead of the default version which is currently 11
(By the way, at some point I recommend setting 17 as the default)

But nothing else has changed.

So why has Android build become so slow and unstable (with strange errors sometimes, or sdk installation)

Some of the last builds:

• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/66674d93e516f48986aad146
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6667451d796e2a2623577b19 (The worst, Forced cancellation)
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6665d239bab98ad219a1104c (Contains strange errors that wasn't recovered afterwards)
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/66674b2c1bf7e57add693ece (Forced cancellation)
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6665d55364ef0f2a578dd30a
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/666632b594f1b2ba0dc1129c

[dtrdic]

hi @burekas7 If you expand the logs for the Installing dependencies step, you'll notice an error message indicating that the current Gradle version you are using (8.1.1) is not supported, and a minimum Gradle version of 8.2 is required. Please update your Gradle version to 8.2 or higher.
Also, Maven Central experienced some outages recently, which might also be contributing to the issue you're encountering

Additionally, the default Java version on the build machine is already set to version 17, starting from June 10. Check this announcement

[dtrdic]

hey @burekas7 If you've set it in android/build.gradle then you've set the gradle plugin version, but the Gradle version is set in the gradle-wrapper.properties file. Try checking the distributionUrl in gradle-wrapper.properties it should also have gradle-8.2 version
Check this gradle compatibility matrix for reference

[burekas7]

@dtrdic
Also there, the version is "..../gradle-8.2-bin.zip" (you zip file is all, I don't know if it's matter)

[dtrdic]

@burekas7, it looks like that even though your android/build.gradle file specifies Gradle version 8.2.2, the actual version being used is 8.1.1.
Also the -bin distribution might lack some necessary components that are included in the -all distribution so this could be the reason.. But try also setting distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-8.2.2-all.zip in gradle-wrapper.properties

[burekas7]

@dtrdic

Still.
Very bad experience with Android build, unstable, slow....

New builds:

• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6672ed06235f17ce2039d2dd
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6672eb48753fe1853ea6c724
• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6672e9ee8865b8d6fa163ceb

Even when it does succeed it takes much longer:

• https://codemagic.io/app/636d13c539a617000f89bf6e/build/6672f1b717e113710f9499d3

All were forcibly stopped, even though the minutes were still counting even though the build was stopped in the middle.
I think that's not normal in my opinion when you make another attempt and another attempt because of a problem that is not yours and still count it.

[burekas7]

@dtrdic
It seems that updating the gradle files helped and improved the time a bit,
but it remains to be seen how stable it is.

https://docs.flutter.dev/release/breaking-changes/flutter-gradle-plugin-apply

[ArthurMassonBit]

[himesh-cm]

Hey @ArthurMassonBit,

Could you please update the gradle files as mentioned below in the docs
https://docs.flutter.dev/release/breaking-changes/flutter-gradle-plugin-apply

If you still have issues, please consider opening a new thread with your build ID.

[burekas7]

@dtrdic @himesh-cm

There is still slowness during the build.
This time is regarding the "Installing dependencies".
Sometimes it's ok and sometimes it's taking few minutes.
Like in this build:
667ad151aef910282ef46e2f

(And also the iOS build is more then usual here)

In addition I'm still getting this error message even my grade configure with 8.2.

* What went wrong:
An exception occurred applying plugin request [id: 'com.android.application']
> Failed to apply plugin 'com.android.internal.version-check'.
   > Minimum supported Gradle version is 8.2. Current version is 8.1.1. If using the gradle wrapper, try editing the distributionUrl in /Users/builder/clone/android/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties to gradle-8.2-all.zip

Why is that?

This is my 'gradle-wrapper.properties' which is ok.

distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
distributionPath=wrapper/dists
distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-8.2-all.zip
zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
zipStorePath=wrapper/dists

[himesh-cm]

Hey @burekas7,
Do you have a Gradle wrapper in your repo (gradlew file)
if not, could you please add it and re-run the build?

[burekas7]

@himesh-cm
Of course, I checked that before.
The file is in version controlled with git etc.

[dtrdic]

hey @burekas7 just note that build minutes with Android, especially the ones that contain very heavy gradle tasks and take a long time to complete, can be improved considerably by caching $HOME/.gradle/caches path

[dtrdic]

I'm tentatively closing the discussion since we haven't heard back from you. You can open the discussion again by replying to this message or opening a new discussion.