Looks like there has been behavior change in OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener onSharedPreferenceChanged callback when apps target devices running OS versions Android R or later.
Now when preferences are cleared null key will be received in onSharedPreferenceChanged which results in app crashing due to null value being emitted to rx stream.
Please see:
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/SharedPreferences.OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener#onSharedPreferenceChanged(android.content.SharedPreferences,%20java.lang.String)