Buildozer for Android API 17

[Der Achim]

I have got a trustworthy ASUS tablet running all day for seven years and displaying a weather forecast, birthdays, etc. Now I have moved my app to Python 3 and Kivy 10 and it is running fine on Windows and Ubuntu. However, when I build it with buildozer and install the APK on the android tablet it will not install since the minimum required API level is too high. The tablet is running Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean which is API level 17.

Setting the minimum API level in buildozer.spec to 17 does not work, since the lowest supported level is 21 ("Build failed: Target ndk-api is 17 but the python3 recipe supports only 21+").

As I have learned from github.com/kivy/buildozer/issues/796 and groups.google.com/g/kivy-users/c/OpRPwGkIiMw/m/SBuvjAM8CAAJ, this is intended behavour.

Hopefully, it is not intended behaviour that people should throw away their still working devices if they want to use Kivy/buildozer.

I guess, the only solution is an old installation of buildozer that would still compile with API 17.

My question ist: Has anybody an old VirtualBox VM laying around with this???

[Der Achim]

Okay, so I will get rid of that old tablet. This is very disappointing.

[Geekademy]

On 2020-10-13 11:41, Der Achim wrote:
> Okay, so I will get rid of that old tablet. This is very disappointing.

> I guess, the only solution is an old installation of buildozer that would
> still compile with API 17.
> My question ist: Has anybody an old VirtualBox VM laying around with this???

I don't think you need a VM, just go back to an old version of your app and
libraries from a few months ago. They're on github or elsewhere, no?

If you want to keep working on it, have at least two branches and cherry-pick
improvements from one to the other.

[Alexander Taylor]

From the python-for-android README: "If you need to build targeting an api level below 21, you should use an older version of python-for-android (<=0.7.1).".

[Der Achim]

On an old, discarded laptop I found a buildozer installation where I could compile an old version of my program. Now, the program runs again on the tablet. Wonderful!

Unfortunately I cannot use that old buildozer installation (0.33.dev0) to compile my program, since I have moved the source code to Python 3...

@Alexander: I don't think there is an easy way to switch buildozer to use python-for-android in an older version??

[Alexander Taylor]

> @Alexander: I don't think there is an easy way to switch buildozer to use python-for-android in an older version??

Set the APP_ANDROID_P4A_DIR environment variable to point to your python-for-android checkout.

On Friday, 23 October 2020 at 16:54:06 UTC+1 uj69...@arcor.de wrote:

On an old, discarded laptop I found a buildozer installation where I could compile an old version of my program. Now, the program runs again on the tablet. Wonderful!

Unfortunately I cannot use that old buildozer installation (0.33.dev0) to compile my program, since I have moved the source code to Python 3...