Google Play Services lib 4.4.52 crashes app with NPE

[Mrigaen Kapadia]

I am seeing a lot of crash reports from my users after updating to the Google Play Services library to 4.4.52. This is what the crash reports look like:
java.lang.NullPointerException 
at zo.a(SourceFile:172) 
at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) 
at afw.run(SourceFile:14) 
at afy.run(SourceFile:30) 
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112) 
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587) 
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:864)

I managed to replicate this with my test device and this is what I see in my logcat:

07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): Interrupted during GADSignals creation. 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): java.lang.InterruptedException 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.doAcquireSharedInterruptibly(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:975) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.acquireSharedInterruptibly(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:1281) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch.await(CountDownLatch.java:202) 07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at zo.a(SourceFile:147) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at zo.a(SourceFile:170) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at afw.run(SourceFile:14) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at afy.run(SourceFile:30) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:841) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/dalvikvm(13812): threadid=16: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x41d7cc08) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): FATAL EXCEPTION: AdWorker #2 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): Process: mrigapps.andriod.fuelcons, PID: 13812 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): java.lang.NullPointerException 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at zo.a(SourceFile:172) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at afw.run(SourceFile:14) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at afy.run(SourceFile:30) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:841) 
07-02 12:36:37.570: W/ActivityManager(2443): Force finishing activity mrigapps.andriod.fuelcons/.ABS

There is an open question on Stackoverflow regarding this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24457689/google-play-services-5-0-77

Can anyone confirm if this is a Google Play Services issue? Will you be rolling out a fix anytime soon?

[Duc Bui]

Me too! Crash happen to Landscape Games when it try to show a Landscape Interstitial Ads with new Admob SDK.

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[Kaka Koko]

I also have this problem, the admob revenue had been dropped dramatically. Google staffs please suggest a way to fix this.

[Amy Quispe (AdMob SDK Team)]

Thanks for reporting this crash. We're looking into it on our end.

Amy Quispe

[Jeff Lee]

I also have this problem starting from June 25th. Please resolve this issue soon.

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[Giang.nh]

I have the same problem :(

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[Luigi Agosti]

Hi Amy,

This is a really big issue, can you tell us what are your plans for the fix

not asking for precise dates but just is it going to be days or weeks?

Just because if is taking long I will have to disable ads so users don't get annoyed by crashes

Luigi

[Lionel Hubmann]

Hello Amy, thanks for the response, we are having the same issue, it's weird that some of our apps are getting more than 100 NPE reports for day and other apps are getting only 8 in a day (with the same proportion of active users). If you need reports or something to fix the issue please contact us, thanks.

Lionel

[Luigi Agosti]

Hi Lionel,

I'm seeing same distribution of NPE and is directly related to number of sessions.

Are you sure that in your case is not? if so can you figure out what is the difference in the implementation?

thanks

Luigi

[Quinn Neumiiller]

This issue started on June 30th for us. We're getting around 500 NPE per day. We had just recovered from a previous admobs issue, which caused ~300k app crashes during its existence. Hoping that we wont have to put our users through that again.

Quinn

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[Giang.nh]

Google play services 5.0 is now available. Hoping that it will solve the problem 

On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 2:50:49 PM UTC+7, Mrigaen Kapadia wrote:

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[Lionel Hubmann]

Hello Luigi, as an example, with two of our apps in the current state of production (both using the latest Google Play Service lib and EXACTLY the same method to show the Ad) one crashes (the one with +100 NPE daily in the reports) and the other doesn't crash (only 8 NPE daily since 25 June) in an LG G2, in all the other phones and tablets the ad shows normally in both apps. Also Interstitial Ads seems to works normally where the small bottom banner (set as SMART_BANNER) crashes.

If you find something please let us know, thanks.

Lionel

[digipom]

This seems to be caused by some sort of update on Google Play's end. I can see a massive number of crashes beginning just a couple days ago, and I haven't updated my APKs anytime recently. I guess this is the downside of depending on Google Play Services for AdMob -- crashes can be introduced without any action on your part, yet you get blamed!

[Mrigaen Kapadia]

Hi Amy,

Can you please confirm if the new Google Play Services 5 update will resolve this. I see no sign of the crashes slowing down.

Thanks,

Mrigaen

[Lionel Hubmann]

Update: with the new Google Play Services library (version 18 android:versionCode="5077000" android:versionName="5.0.77-000"), after importing it, one of the apps started working normally (in the problematic LG G2 phone) but other of our apps was still giving the same crash. Adding android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent" to activity android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity" in the manifest fixed the issue (for some reason...) for all our apps in this phone at least.

Thanks for the fix in the Google Play Services... now can somebody explain the problem to the angry users? =)

Lionel

[Federico Naso]

Same here... I've updated to versionCode="5077000" and my app is still failing :(

please help!!

[Sam Lu]

I tried to not add google play service jar file into Progurad and still got the same NullPointerException error when AdMob was trying to show AdActivity

24 at acm.a(SourceFile:215)

25 at acz.onTransact(SourceFile:58)

26 at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:347)

27 at com.google.android.gms.internal.ck$a$a.onCreate(Unknown Source)

28 at com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity.onCreate(Unknown Source)

29 at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5372)

30 at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1104)

31 at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2257)

32 at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2349)

33 at android.app.ActivityThread.access$700(ActivityThread.java:159)

34 at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1316)

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

36 at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:176)

[Ketan Patel]

We have been getting these errors recently:

java.lang.NullPointerException at zo.a(SourceFile:172) at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) at afw.run(SourceFile:14) at afy.run(SourceFile:30) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019) 


Can somebody please have a look at it and tell us an interim workaround if fix is not available soon?

Thanks,
Ketan

[Luigi Agosti]

Problem is getting worse everyday

I have been using admob for over 2 years and I have never seen such a big issue.

We are even left without any reliable information.

This is so bad that I'm thinking to move back to admob library.

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[b0b]

Same here.

136 crashes in 2 days.
This is now the number one crash in my app.

[b0b]

Someone on Stack Overflow mentionned that updating to Google Play Service rev18 fixed it.

Can anyone confirm as I'm a bit sceptical...

[digipom]

The problem with moving back to the AdMob Library is that Google Play won't let you publish updates after August 1st.

[Mrigaen Kapadia]

Couldn't take the backlash anymore. Moved back to AdMob 6.2.1. Crashes on my test devices stopped. I'll keep you posted on how it looks in the dev console. 

AdMob Team,

Please at least give us some updates. This is really causing a lot of anxiety.

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[digipom]

Did Google silently fix this on their side? Crash reports peaked on July 2nd and are down significantly on July 3rd. I didn't change anything on my side as I was waiting for more information.

[Mrigaen Kapadia]

Don't think so. Crashes for me peaked on 3rd. And today does not look good either.

[Luigi Agosti]

I think I will follow you as well... 

We probably have to wait quite a bit for a fix on google side

thanks Mrigaen

[Digipom Inc.]

I am getting most of the problems in my smaller app. The larger one doesn’t show ads on the primary screen so I received far, far less crashes there.

For me the first crash was reported on the 25th, then on the 30th it jumped up a lot. These are just reported crashes so the tracking might not be as accurate as say, Google Analytics or another crash tracking tool.

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[Luigi Agosti]

started 25th big jump after 30 july... ~600 crashes yesterday

you can see the graph http://crashes.to/s/99aa9008b94

[Xavier Guillemane]

@Quinn Neumiiller +1
After months of crashes with previous versions of the Google Play Services you finally managed to fix the bugs, but now the latest release crashes even more than before. I'm having 1k+ crashes per day now.
And the next version won't be released until 6 weeks...
In the meantime we're receiving a lot of bad reviews, and losing all credibility with our users saying that once again the crashes are because of Google bugs...
Please fix this issue before the next release

[Changzhi Wang]

Same here! Suddenly from June 26

[digipom]

So has anyone definitely fixed this? I'm seeing some conflicting reports out there...

[Mrigaen Kapadia]

Can definitely confirm that the crashes have stopped after downgrading to Admob sdk 6.2.1.

[Mike Kelley]

Add us to the list -- released the new GPS + admob library and now we get the same crash. We have sen it only when the app is starting up, not later

Exception "AdWorker #6": java.lang.NullPointerException
	at zo.a(SourceFile:172)
	at aeh.a(SourceFile:120)
	at afw.run(SourceFile:14)
	at afy.run(SourceFile:30)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1076)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:569)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:856)

On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 1:24:53 AM UTC-7, Duc Bui wrote:

Me too! Crash happen to Landscape Games when it try to show a Landscape Interstitial Ads with new Admob SDK.

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) 

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at afw.run(SourceFile:14) 

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at afy.run(SourceFile:30) 

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112) 

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587) 

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:841) 

07-02 12:36:37.570: W/ActivityManager(2443): Force finishing activity mrigapps.andriod.fuelcons/.ABS

There is an open question on Stackoverflow regarding this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24457689/google-play-services-5-0-77

Can anyone confirm if this is a Google Play Services issue? Will you be rolling out a fix anytime soon?

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[Xavier Guillemane]

That's not a solution... At the end of the month we won't be able to use this standalone SDK anymore...

[Mrigaen Kapadia]

I agree but I couldn't keep waiting for Google to push in a fix while my ratings went down. Hopefully the get one out before the end of the month :)

[digipom]

I noticed one of the crashes was reported by someone running ART, which reveals slightly more info at the crash site:

java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke interface method 'java.lang.String vh.a(android.content.Context)' on a null object reference

at zo.a(SourceFile:172)
at aeh.a(SourceFile:120)
at afw.run(SourceFile:14)
at afy.run(SourceFile:30)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587)

at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:818)

[digipom]

Well, this is a solution until the end of the month. I'm getting significant pressure from my customers as well.

[Xavier Guillemane]

Next official version is scheduled in 5 weeks, so too late for the August deadline... unless they push a fix before, but they never did with the previous bugs

[thiagolr]

I think I found a solution:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24457689/google-play-services-5-0-77/24591535#24591535

I was able to reproduce this issue 100% while using the Google Play Games Realtime Multiplayer and after the solution above, no more crashes!

Please let me know if this also works for you!

Thiago

On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 4:50:49 AM UTC-3, Mrigaen Kapadia wrote:

I am seeing a lot of crash reports from my users after updating to the Google Play Services library to 4.4.52. This is what the crash reports look like:

java.lang.NullPointerException 
at zo.a(SourceFile:172) 
at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) 
at afw.run(SourceFile:14) 
at afy.run(SourceFile:30) 
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112) 
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587) 
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:864)

I managed to replicate this with my test device and this is what I see in my logcat:

07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): Interrupted during GADSignals creation. 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): java.lang.InterruptedException 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.doAcquireSharedInterruptibly(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:975) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.acquireSharedInterruptibly(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:1281) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch.await(CountDownLatch.java:202) 07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at zo.a(SourceFile:147) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at zo.a(SourceFile:170) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at afw.run(SourceFile:14) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at afy.run(SourceFile:30) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/Ads(13812): at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:841) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: W/dalvikvm(13812): threadid=16: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x41d7cc08) 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): FATAL EXCEPTION: AdWorker #2 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): Process: mrigapps.andriod.fuelcons, PID: 13812 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): java.lang.NullPointerException 
07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at zo.a(SourceFile:172) 

07-02 12:36:37.555: E/AndroidRuntime(13812): at aeh.a(SourceFile<span style="

...

[Digipom Inc.]

So, I can confirm that switching back to the AdMob jar fixed the crashes for me.

It makes me nervous that we’re now at the mercy of these automatic updates, since we are the first to get blamed when something goes wrong, and it’s so incredibly hard to have a conversation with an actual human at Google…

Re: the August deadline, don’t take my word for it but I believe that while Google Play won’t allow new updates without using Google Play Services, the ads will work to the end of August, so that gives enough time to the next release if they don’t release a hot fix before then.

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[Todd Bryant]

How did you revert back to 6.4.1? I am getting an issue with the AdRequest constructor not being visible. I think I am getting a name collision with the google play services jar, but I need that jar for maps. 

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[Khanh Do Quoc]

Hello,

Could you confirm your solution pls?

Vào 01:46:05 UTC+7 Thứ sáu, ngày 04 tháng bảy năm 2014, Lionel Hubmann đã viết:

Update: with the new Google Play Services library (version 18 android:versionCode="5077000" android:versionName="5.0.77-000"), after importing it, one of the apps started working normally (in the problematic LG G2 phone) but other of our apps was still giving the same crash. Adding android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent" to activity android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity" in the manifest fixed the issue (for some reason...) for all our apps in this phone at least.

Thanks for the fix in the Google Play Services... now can somebody explain the problem to the angry users? =)

Lionel

[Gert]

Hello Amy,

Any news on this issue?

We are seeing a lot of crashes, and nothing we can do about it. And to make the frustration even worse, there is not a single statement from Google. The only thing I can find, is your post that "your end" is looking into it.

Some of us have to report to our bosses, what is causing this amount of crashes. 

Regards,

Gert

Op donderdag 3 juli 2014 01:25:26 UTC+2 schreef Amy Quispe (AdMob SDK Team):

Thanks for reporting this crash. We're looking into it on our end.

Amy Quispe

On Wednesday, July 2, 2014 10:44:33 AM UTC-7, Kaka Koko wrote:

I also have this problem, the admob revenue had been dropped dramatically. Google staffs please suggest a way to fix this.

[Danh Dong Quang]

Hi all,

For Google Play Service rev 18(v 5.077), this bug have fixed?

[Joe John]

I still getting errors.

понедельник, 7 июля 2014 г., 6:33:03 UTC+4 пользователь Khanh Do Quoc написал:

[manpreet patil]

Almost 1 week has gone and we still don't got any solution. i think right now we have  only one solution to  move to other ads service  network ? otherwise we will lose our uses and low rating...

Feeling helpless....

[Cristian Mataoanu]

Any fix to this?
Somebody said the old admob library fixes this. Which version is ok? 6.2.1 had some issues. Is 6.4.1 (the last admob version) any better?

[Lionel Hubmann]

Hello Khanh Do Quoc, the LG G2 phone started working with the changes I mentioned, but the problem started to show in another phone, a Motorola RAZR HD, sometimes the app crashes but not always, sometimes the Ad shows up... So no, this is not the solution to the problem, sorry, we are still waiting for a fix to release the apps.

Lionel

[Digipom Inc.]

I rolled back to 6.4.1, released a new version and have seen zero crashes with this new version. It’s only temporary since the JAR version is deprecated (unfortunately, as it certainly seems like a more stable solution).

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[Digipom Inc.]

What I’m wondering is why is the attention around this so small? AdMob is one of the biggest ad libraries out there. Is it not affecting most developers, are most developers just ignoring/not noticing this, or what? I’m somewhat confused by that. 

[b0b]

Since we get no news on this from Google and we don't even know if fixing it will require a new Google Play Service (either the one installed on devices, or the client lib requiring an app recompile) or not,
I decided to implement a server-side toggle to switch ads on/off. I will switch it off until this is solved.

[Cristian Mataoanu]

Maybe there are some special scenarios when it crashes. Has anybody found a way to replicate the bug? I see about 1% of sessions crashing.

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[Dorian Gray]

We have too many bad reviews and huge revenue lost. And the worst part is people won't be likely to tap the ads anymore.  Admob has always been problematic. I think Google should fire the whole admob team and get rid of this amateurs.

[Digipom Inc.]

I haven’t been able to reproduce it on my test devices. It might depend on how the ads are used/shown as well. In my smaller app I have a pretty standard integration with a banner in the main activity, and this one was giving me at least 1% of crashes reported per session, which is huge and resulted in a large influx of 1-star reviews. In my larger app, the integration is different because my activity has 2 tabs, and I only show the ad banner on the second tab. I still get crashes there, but it’s more like 0.01% per session.

So, it seems like it has something to do with the startup flow of the application. If the ad isn’t loaded immediately, it seems that the chances of crashing are much lower.

I didn’t want to spend too much time hypothesizing though while my users were being locked out of the app, so I just rolled back Night Filter and will wait until we get some definite confirmation. 

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[Joshua]

I have tried this solution for my app, but still getting crash reports...

Khanh Do Quoc於 2014年7月7日星期一UTC+8上午10時33分03秒寫道：

[Eli Lipsitz]

This still occurs on Google Play services 5.0.84 (1259630-036).

This is a big problem, and it's ridiculous that we haven't heard anything from Google. The weird thing for me is that it only happens some of the time. I'm using interstitials, not banners.

My test device is a Samsung SCH-I535 (US Galaxy S3) running 4.4.4.

java.lang.RuntimeException:
 Unable to start activity
ComponentInfo{com.xxxxx.xxxx.xxxx/com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity}:
 java.lang.NullPointerException

at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2213)

  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2262)

   at android.app.ActivityThread.access$800(ActivityThread.java:145)

      at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1206)

at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)

at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)

     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5170)

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

at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)

    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:797)

     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:613)

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

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException

      at acm.a(SourceFile:215)

       at acz.onTransact(SourceFile:58)

       at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:361)

 at com.google.android.gms.internal.co$a$a.onCreate(Unknown Source)

     at com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity.onCreate(Unknown Source)

      at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5246)

      at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1087)

 at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2167)

  ... 11 more

java.lang.NullPointerException

      at acm.a(SourceFile:215)

       at acz.onTransact(SourceFile:58)

       at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:361)

 at com.google.android.gms.internal.co$a$a.onCreate(Unknown Source)

     at com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity.onCreate(Unknown Source)

      at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5246)

      at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1087)

 at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2167)

  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2262)

   at android.app.ActivityThread.access$800(ActivityThread.java:145)

      at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1206)

at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)

at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)

     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5170)

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

at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)

    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:797)

     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:613)

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

[Guillermo Campelo]

Got some crashes here too using 5.0.77:

Thread: AdWorker #2, Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException at com.google.android.gms.internal.mz.a(Unknown Source) at com.google.android.gms.internal.eg.a(Unknown Source) at com.google.android.gms.internal.fv$1.run(Unknown Source) at com.google.android.gms.internal.fw$1.run(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)

aaaaand....


Thread: AdWorker #2, Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException at zo.a(SourceFile:172) at aeh.a(SourceFile:120) at afw.run(SourceFile:14) at afy.run(SourceFile:30) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)

Is there a workaround? Any fix coming soon?

[Amy Quispe (AdMob SDK Team)]

Hi everyone,

We're aware of these crashes and are working on fixes. We hope to push out these fixes in the next week or two.

Amy Quispe

[Digipom Inc.]

I use Git for source tracking, so for me it was a matter of just rolling back a commit. Probably need to double-check your imports; import from com.google.ads instead of com.google.android.gms.ads.

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to google-admob-ads...@googlegroups.com.

[饶永超]

Hi amy,

Why so slowly? Next week, not tomorrow? So much users crash online.

[E]

Two weeks? Google-Schedule? T_T

[贺君]

Very serious problems, serious harm to our users, Hope Google resolved as soon as possible

在 2014年7月8日星期二UTC+8上午5时00分37秒，Amy Quispe (AdMob SDK Team)写道：

[siy...@conew.com]

Hi amy,

TWO weeks is TOO SLOWLY！！！！！pls as fast as you can！We are waiting for you online！

[shid...@conew.com]

[shid...@conew.com]

Hi Amy Quispe:

      This problem have caused us miss lot of users, Can u resolve this problem this week?

[jerryzheng]

To solve the time is too slow,please ASAP！

[MilleniumApps Andr]

After updating with GPS 5 I am getting A LOT of:

java.lang.NullPointerException

at zo.a(SourceFile:172)

at aeh.a(SourceFile:120)

at afw.run(SourceFile:14)

at afy.run(SourceFile:30)

at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088)

at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581)

at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)

and:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{[package]/com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity}: java.lang.NullPointerException

at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1959)

at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1984)

at android.app.ActivityThread.access$600(ActivityThread.java:126)

at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1150)

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

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

at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4456)

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:787)

at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:554)

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

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException

at acm.a(SourceFile:215)

at acz.onTransact(SourceFile:58)

at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:297)

at com.google.android.gms.internal.co$a$a.onCreate(Unknown Source)

at com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity.onCreate(Unknown Source)

at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:4465)

at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1049)

at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1923)

... 11 more

#BringBackOurAdmob!!!

[Giorgio]

It's so depressing to see that hundreds of hours spent improving and stabilizing an application can be thwarted by the work of the supposed best developers (multiple interview stages, multiple tests ans stuff like that) working at Google. 

Of course bugs are a natural "side effects" of software production but.....Google...a "system library" which tons of applications depends on, those applications that can means everything for a developer cannot lead simply to this disastrous behavior.

Google Play services simply has to work. Always. With no bugs specially if Google forces developers to use it.

That's why an answer like "in the next week or two" is not acceptable. 

Regards

[Andrew Kisliakov]

I have discovered a workaround.

In my case, I was showing the ad from within a service running in a custom process. For example:

       

<service
    android:name="com.example.MyService"
    android:exported="false"
    android:process=":svc"
    />

In my AndroidManifest.xml, I then set the same android:process attribute for the declared AdActivity, and the problem went away.

       

 <activity
    android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity"
    android:process=":svc"
    android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize"
    />

In the case of my application, I don't particularly care which process the ad activity runs in, so this workaround is sufficient. Hopefully this will be of some use to others.

[Mateusz Matela]

I think I have a good workaround for this: you can catch exceptions thrown by AdWorder threads and just log them instead of crashing, with something like this:

        final UncaughtExceptionHandler defaultHandler = Thread.getDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler();
        Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler(new UncaughtExceptionHandler() {

            @Override
            public void uncaughtException(Thread thread, Throwable ex) {
                if (thread.getName().startsWith("AdWorker")) {
                    Log.w("ADMOB", "AdWorker thread thrown an exception.", ex);
                } else if (defaultHandler != null) {
                    defaultHandler.uncaughtException(thread, ex);
                } else {
                    throw new RuntimeException("No default uncaught exception handler.", ex);
                }
            }
        });

This can be added in a subclass of Application, in onCreate() method.
I don't have any popular app though, so I'm not sure this solves all problems. Let me know what you think :)

[Dalmas]

Because of this bug, I had thousands of crashes each day, my app rating started to drop, I've even lost two places in the search results (probably due to a spike in uninstalls/bad ratings) and the only answer we get is "we will fix this in a week or two". Sure, I implemented a workaround now (which is to not use AdMob at all), but this is ridiculous.

Seriously, that's a NullPointerException, you could add a null check and just avoid crashing the whole app while you take more time to see what's wrong. I've almost never seen such a bug in any ad network SDK I've used, or if there was one it was fixed the day it was reported.

[Stefano Baldi]

Totally agree ..so depressing and we cant do anything
Old admob lib was not so bugged and we were free to choose which version to use.
Now we have no control at all, and every new GPS version i cross my fingers hoping everything is ok.
You forced us to migrate to GPS and you have to provide a stable release .
After hundreds of crashes java.lang.NullPointerException at android.webkit.WebViewClassic.loadUrlImpl(WebViewClassic.java:2732) now this.
And who do you think users will blame? Google or app developers?
You should test carefully system libs, no matter if you had to release it for google io or android wear
Not the first time this happens and probably won't be the last but every new release it's the same old story and this is really not acceptable.

[Brandon Davis]

I'm having this issue but failing to reproduce it in house. Does anyone have any reproduction steps they are using to verify this problem?

[Allen Wang]

Same problem here, google guys, hurry up! At least give us a formal work around for this problem! Thanks.

[John Mollaghan]

Getting same issues in my apps and have noticed a drop in revenue also.

Ridiculous

[oren....@avg.com]

We are seeing this issue also.

When is a fix going to be released? and how long will it take to roll out to the users?

[yan MESS]

Here is more details about the second crash that i get, maybe it will help you Admob team:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{[My Package]/com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity}: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to read from field 'com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.InterstitialAdParameterParcel com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.overlay.AdOverlayInfoParcel.q' on a null object reference
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2395)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2453)
at android.app.ActivityThread.access$900(ActivityThread.java:173)
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1303)

at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)

at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5579)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1268)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1084)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to read from field 'com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.InterstitialAdParameterParcel com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.overlay.AdOverlayInfoParcel.q' on a null object reference

at acm.a(SourceFile:215)
at acz.onTransact(SourceFile:58)

at android.os.Binder.transact(Binder.java:361)

at com.google.android.gms.internal.co$a$a.onCreate(Unknown Source)
at com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity.onCreate(Unknown Source)

at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5451)
at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1093)
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2359)
... 9 more

Please catch all the exceptions in the SDK to allow us to jump to the next Ad network instead of crashing the whole App. Is that really hard to do? Why not adding a beta version of GPS like the Chrome team is doing successfully, so that you can track crashes in the beta version and fix them in the normal version. What do you think guys?

[Raja Ibrahim]

I fixed my problem using the solution on : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24457689/google-play-services-5-0-77/24591535#24591535

[Terry Nunn]

I'm using google play services r18 and I had the same crash issues happening.
I changed only one thing and the crashes stopped. Why? I have no idea.
AndroidManifest.xml
        <activity android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity"
            android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent" <--- I added this line

            android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize"/>

Thx Lionel

[Francesco Finazzi]

This is incredible. I'm loosing users, receiving bad reviews and loosing rank positions in the search results. My app does not show up anymore in the list of similar apps probably due to the large number of daily crashes. Two weeks? Two more days and I'm done with AdMob.

[Allen Wang]

I believe that forcing developers to upgrade from stable Admob legacy library to unstable google play services library is a really bad decision.

The 1 August 2014 is the deadline but the google play services library is not ready and still buggy, which is very funny.

[Giorgio]

that's exactly what's happening to most applications. For big developers or company it's not a problem but for small and medium applications it's a pain.
Probably these google guys likes to play with developers and people's life. I'm very disappointed with this Google's behavior.

[shid...@conew.com]

Amy:

   Our Crushes are go on everyday,And it have seriously impact on our user experience，Crush report as follow,We hope this problem can be solved as soon as possible.Thanks~

     

Date	Quantity of Crash
2014/7/10	26223
2014/7/9	32144
2014/7/8	34704
2014/7/7	36496
2014/7/6	39232
2014/7/5	40528
2014/7/4	38896
2014/7/3	27392
2014/7/2	18432
2014/7/1	8512
2014/6/30	1968
2014/6/29	1920
2014/6/28	1648
2014/6/27	1456
2014/6/26	416

[Suzana Taylor]

We're facing the same problem. Google, do you at least have any workaround ready until this is fixed?

Please, Google get your s together. Don't be changing the policies (I'm talking about the new rules of accepting apps from August 1st) if you don't have your stuff ready. Please, know that we work hard to make good apps. It's hard enough already that we have to do all of the job for you (make apps, market them and your eosystem, give you 30% of our revenue, etc) - you don't have to force feed us with your buggy libraries on top of all that! Fix this, you have become ridiculously careless.

[Amy Quispe (AdMob SDK Team)]

Hi everyone,

We've started rolling out a fix. It should be out to everyone in the next few days.

Amy Quispe

[Quinn Neumiiller]

/cheer

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[Brandon Davis]

Will this come as an update to Google Play Services?

[mudit agarwal]

Do we need to update our apps again??

[MilleniumApps Andr]

No if you don't care about your user's who don't have Google Play Services (ex: kindle fire) and no as new bugs can be expected. The best solution is to wait at until crashes will go down.

--

[Aezalden Mhameed]

We see drop in revenue and DAU! :(

will Admob compensate us for lose we have because of them?!!#@#!   20% instead of 30% for a month :p

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to google-admob-ads-sdk+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Guy Tavor]

Thanks Amy & Team.

It seems that the root holistic cause for this and the previous bug making it to production, is that none of the google android products contain admob ads. (i.e. not eating own dogfood).

These are the kind of bugs that are hard to reproduce, but are easily picked up once you go release to production.

A possible solution would be to  sign up a few developers with high traffic apps, and ask them to monitor for new bugs once a new GPS version is rolled out.

We would certainly will be willing to do so, and our crash monitoring have picked up these two crashes very early on. 

Theoretically, this could catch such bugs at the beginning of your staged rollout.

Guy

scoompa

PGP Fingerprint: EA91 0989 4159 1707 406E 1FD5 0791 6FB0 BAD5 C179

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[venkatramanan r]

Hi Amy, 

Do we need to update the Google Play services in ADT and update the apps with Admob? Or is it a server side integration in Admob?

Thanks & Regards,

Venkat.

[Amit Kumar Saha]

Hello Amy,

1. is there going to be a new SDK ??? And do we need to update our apps again? 

2. Or is it going to be changed in server side. So neither us nor the user dont need to update anything?

Kindly reply. I hope you understand how much frustrations have been growing & more over how much good users we are loosing due to this forced usage of GPS for admob.

[Amy Quispe (AdMob SDK Team)]

You will not have to re-ship your apps. This fix will be rolled out to Google Play Services.

Amy

[Andy Nugent]

What changes will be happening to future updates of Google Play Services to stop this occurring again? Gradual roll-out of updates perhaps?