Intermittent ClassNotFoundException on app update

[JonS]

Hi,

I've noticed that a large number of my apps that I am publishing in Google Play have crashes (shown in the "Crash and ANR"  tab) that look like this.

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to instantiate application com.domain.app.MainApplication: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.domain.app.MainApplication

    at android.app.LoadedApk.makeApplication(LoadedApk.java:501)

    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:4265)

    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1400(ActivityThread.java:143)

    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1301)

    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)

    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)

    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4962)

    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)

    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)

    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1004)

    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:771)

    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.domain.app.MainApplication

    at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:61)

    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:501)

    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:461)

    at android.app.Instrumentation.newApplication(Instrumentation.java:982)

    at android.app.LoadedApk.makeApplication(LoadedApk.java:496)

    ... 11 more

Note that all my apps are pretty much independent of each other and do not have shared code.

From the Google Play developer console, I've noticed that these crashes mostly occur when the app is being updated.  My guess is that when the PackageManager attempts to update my app, that the Android platform is not completely stopping my app.  Therefore, since the app is still running while the APK is being removed, when the app needs code or any resources, it is unable to locate it (apk has been deleted during update) and therefore throws this exception.

Again, this exception is intermittent.  Out of every 100 or so updates, this crash will appear once or twice.

Has anyone else experienced this?  My theory is that the platform itself must be buggy, but I am unable to confirm this.  Is there a way for me to confirm this is a platform issue?

Thanks!

J

[David Cameron]

I've seen something similar in a situation where we were trying to keep a service perpetually running in the background. During an upgrade, the system would notice that the service wasn't running anymore and try to restart it before the new apk was correctly in place. I think we ended up working around it by detecting upgrades, stopping the service, and scheduling a re-launch in AlarmManager for an arbitrary amount of time later.

This was also a system level app, in case that is relevant in your case as well.

I suppose it is a platform issue, at least a type of race condition. In our case we blamed it on our somewhat unorthodox desire to keep the service constantly running.

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[JonS]

Thanks David.  I appreciate the feedback.  We do have quite a bit of services that run in my app.  They are all in-process non-system services though.  I'll try to add logging in the onDestroy(...) and onCreate(...) of each service method to see what I can find out.

We also have a lot of broadcast receivers so I am wondering if maybe the system is not unregistering my receivers prior to the update.  Therefore, I wonder if it's possible for my  receivers to receive a system event when my app is in the middle of an update (i.e. after APK has been removed and before it has been re-installed?).

J

[David Cowden]

I don't think "we have an everlasting service so whatever" is a valid rationalization for the general issue because, if the issue is indeed as described, then this could happen to any service that requests to be restarted if it's killed in-flight. It doesn't seem the long-lasting aspect has anything to do with this--the race condition exists nonetheless.