androidx.browser:browser new version causing android crash

[MFrat]

Due to this code section in build.gradle:

  if (supportLibVersion && androidXVersion == null) {
    implementation "com.android.support:support-annotations:$supportLibVersion"
    implementation "com.android.support:customtabs:$supportLibVersion"
  } else {
    def defaultAndroidXVersion = "1.+"
    if (androidXVersion == null) {
      androidXVersion = defaultAndroidXVersion
    }
    def androidXAnnotation = safeExtGet('androidXAnnotation', androidXVersion)
    def androidXBrowser = safeExtGet('androidXBrowser', androidXVersion)
    implementation "androidx.annotation:annotation:$androidXAnnotation"
    implementation "androidx.browser:browser:$androidXBrowser"
  }

This crash occurs:

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:checkDevDebugAarMetadata'.
> A failure occurred while executing com.android.build.gradle.internal.tasks.CheckAarMetadataWorkAction
   > The minCompileSdk (31) specified in a
     dependency's AAR metadata (META-INF/com/android/build/gradle/aar-metadata.properties)
     is greater than this module's compileSdkVersion (android-29).       
     Dependency: androidx.browser:browser:1.4.0-alpha01.
     AAR metadata file: xxx\.gradle\caches\transforms-2\files-2.1\41d31c04c2da61351e7148be9705c286\browser-1.4.0-alpha01\META-INF\com\android\build\gradle\aar-metadata.properties.

I think it is not a good practice to set a version with +, it should be a fixed stable version, like:

def defaultAndroidXAnnotation = "1.2.0"
def defaultAndroidXBrowser = "1.3.0"

def androidXAnnotation = safeExtGet('androidXAnnotation', defaultAndroidXAnnotation)
def androidXBrowser = safeExtGet('androidXBrowser', defaultAndroidXBrowser)

implementation "androidx.annotation:annotation:$androidXAnnotation"
implementation "androidx.browser:browser:$androidXBrowser"

To fix this without depending on a new version of this library, add this:

    ext {
        buildToolsVersion = "29.0.3"
        minSdkVersion = 21
        compileSdkVersion = 29
        targetSdkVersion = 29
        kotlinVersion = "1.3.72"
        androidXBrowser = "1.3.0" // Adding this property will avoid defaultAndroidXVersion
    }

[tindn]

@MFrat Thank you for detailing a fix in the meantime

[ArturTimoxin]

@MFrat Thank you it helped me a lot! I had the error in the Android Studio

The minCompileSdk (31) specified in a dependency's AAR metadata (META-INF/com/android/build/gradle/aar-metadata.properties) is greater than this module's compileSdkVersion (android-30).

This line androidXBrowser = "1.3.0" resolved my problem with this. androidXBrowser just got new version, but version 1.3.0 is better for me.

[csantarin]

@MFrat found the same problem, found the same solution.

But why close this, though? This fix should be forwarded to a PR...