MobileAds.initialize() must be called prior to getting version string

[Marcel]

Need some help. Today I just started receiving the crash below. I am using 

Facebook Audience Mediantion SDK adapter versions:

implementation 'com.facebook.android:audience-network-sdk:5.3.0'

implementation 'com.google.ads.mediation:facebook:5.3.0.0'

Google Ads Version:

implementation "com.google.firebase:firebase-ads:17.2.0"

I just received more than 6.000 crashes on the last hour. The app was fine, I did not make any update on it, and just today I am getting this crashes.

Fatal Exception: java.lang.IllegalStateException: MobileAds.initialize() must be called prior to getting version string.

       at com.google.android.gms.common.internal.Preconditions.checkState + 29(Preconditions.java:29)

       at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.zzabc.getVersionString + 87(zzabc.java:87)

       at com.google.android.gms.ads.MobileAds.getVersionString + 16(MobileAds.java:16)

       at com.google.ads.mediation.facebook.FacebookInitializer.initialize + 51(FacebookInitializer.java:51)

       at com.google.ads.mediation.facebook.FacebookMediationAdapter.initialize + 86(FacebookMediationAdapter.java:86)

       at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.zzanm.zza + 364(zzanm.java:364)

       at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.zzamu.dispatchTransaction + 194(zzamu.java:194)

       at com.google.android.gms.internal.ads.zzfn.onTransact + 12(zzfn.java:12)

       at android.os.Binder.transact + 499(Binder.java:499)

       at pa.b + 2(pa.java:2)

       at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.mediation.client.g.a + 16(g.java:16)

       at com.google.android.gms.ads.nonagon.initialization.h.run + 5(h.java:5)

       at android.os.Handler.handleCallback + 751(Handler.java:751)

       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage + 95(Handler.java:95)

       at aaj.a(aaj.java)

       at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.util.e.a + 1(e.java:1)

       at aaj.dispatchMessage(aaj.java)

       at android.os.Looper.loop + 154(Looper.java:154)

       at android.app.ActivityThread.main + 6351(ActivityThread.java:6351)

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

       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run + 896(ZygoteInit.java:896)

       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main + 786(ZygoteInit.java:786)

[Ali asjad]

I am also facing the same problem. Everything was working fine and then this crash came up!

It affected more than 2000 users!
Please let us know what is going on?

[Gaurav Kumar]

Same Here...Effected more than 250 users...

[Romain Lebouc]

Same Here. 30% of users had crashes today (from less than 1%). No recent updates.

I could solve the problem with an update but AdMob needs to solve the problem on its side. I cannot have a version which will crash that often until all the users update the app. 

[Sébastien Leclerc]

Same issue in my app. Around 5% of sessions are crashing because of this.

It impacts several versions of my app:

Latest version uses:

    implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-config:18.0.0'

    implementation 'com.facebook.android:audience-network-sdk:5.2.0'

    implementation 'com.google.ads.mediation:facebook:5.2.0.1'

Previous version (also impacted) uses:

    implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-config:17.2.0'

    implementation 'com.facebook.android:audience-network-sdk:5.2.0'

    implementation 'com.google.ads.mediation:facebook:5.2.0.1'

@Google: please rollback whatever change you have rolled out on 12JUL2019 !

[Sébastien Leclerc]

@Fellow developers:

Did any of you upgrade to Mobile Ads v18.1.0 yet ?

Does this solve the issue?

There are new instructions about waiting for MobileAds.initialize() to complete before trying to show ads:

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        MobileAds.initialize(this, new OnInitializationCompleteListener() {
            @Override
            public void onInitializationComplete(InitializationStatus initializationStatus) {
            }
        });
    }
}

https://developers.google.com/admob/android/quick-start

[Romain Lebouc]

Those dependencies work for me (no more crashes) :

implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-core:17.0.0'

implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-ads:18.0.0'

implementation 'com.facebook.android:audience-network-sdk:5.4.0'
implementation 'com.google.ads.mediation:facebook:5.4.0.0'

I do not know about waiting for initialization to complete (I call AdMob initialization in the onCreate of my app and ads are not loaded on the first screens so I guess initialization is done before the first ads are shown).

FYI, I tried to disable Facebook mediation in the AdMob console but that did not stop the crashes

[gautam kumar]

Same here more than 7,000 users per day are affected by it. Although i have updated the dependencies but it will take time for users to update so please @Google revert back the changes made on 11 July on Admob mediation.

[Sébastien Leclerc]

Thanks a lot Romain for sharing your findings.

I updated FB SDK to v5.4.1 and so far no issue on this version.

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi all,

Thank you for your patience on this matter.

The Engineering team just got back to me with news of this issue being fixed in the latest SDK version (18.1.1). Kindly refer to the release notes page for further details.

Regards,
Ziv Yves Sanchez
Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Sanjay]

Although latest SDK version have fixed it but there are many users on that version and app crashing now very often on that version. Is there any way we can fix it?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello there,

We always suggest the publishers to stay updated with the latest SDK versions as we keep fixing bugs and make improvements in all the new SDK releases. So, please update to the latest version of the SDK to avoid these crashes.

Regards,
Deepika Uragayala

Mobile Ads SDK Team
 

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