Android multidex not working

Question

I have the following quarrel:

So for a larger project I require to have multiple Apps with a reusable library module inside of them for several purposes. Unfortunately, it seems that I exceeded the dex limit for my project just with the basic amount of classes and libraries that I have inside my library module with the following gradle dependencies

dependencies {
        implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
        testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.12'

        implementation "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk7:$kotlin_version"
        implementation "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-reflect:1.2.51"
        implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko:$anko_version"

        implementation 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.3'

        androidTestImplementation 'androidx.test:runner:1.1.0-alpha4'
        androidTestImplementation 'androidx.test.espresso:espresso-core:3.1.0-alpha4'

        implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.0.0-beta01'
        implementation 'com.google.android.material:material:1.0.0-beta01'
        implementation 'androidx.recyclerview:recyclerview:1.0.0-beta01'
        implementation 'androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:2.0.0-alpha1'
        implementation 'androidx.exifinterface:exifinterface:1.0.0-beta01'
        implementation "androidx.browser:browser:1.0.0-beta01"

        implementation 'com.android.volley:volley:1.1.0'

        implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.5'
        implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-vision:15.0.2'

        implementation 'com.jakewharton:butterknife:8.8.1'
        annotationProcessor 'com.jakewharton:butterknife-compiler:8.8.1'

        implementation 'com.github.ornolfr:rating-view:0.1.2@aar'
        implementation 'com.github.siyamed:android-shape-imageview:0.9.3@aar'
        implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.7.1'
        annotationProcessor 'com.github.bumptech.glide:compiler:4.6.1'
        implementation("com.github.bumptech.glide:recyclerview-integration:4.6.1") {
            // Excludes the support library because it's already included by Glide.
            transitive = false
        }

        implementation 'net.cachapa.expandablelayout:expandablelayout:2.9.2'

        implementation 'io.realm:android-adapters:2.1.1'
    }

As you can see its quite a lot of libraries (which I do require). Additionally to that, Ive already enabled multiDex to true, added the support multidex library (as you can see in the dependencies), and I also use a custom Application class that extends from MultidexApplication

But unfortunately I still get the

Error: Cannot fit requested classes in a single dex file (# methods: 68405 > 65536)

error during build. The only option that seemed to solve it was setting my minSDK from 19 to 21, but I require to have it at 19 for the project.

Does anybody have an idea what I might also try to fix it?

Answer 1

You are currently using the support multidex library but you've upgraded to use androidx.

Therefore, You need to use the androidx version.

ie:

replace implementation 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.3'

with implementation 'androidx.multidex:multidex:2.0.0'

Answer 2

Implementing a multidex for below API 21 is a two steps process.

First step:

android {
defaultConfig {
    ...
    minSdkVersion 15 
    targetSdkVersion 26
    multiDexEnabled true
}
...
}
dependencies {
  compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.3'
}

Second step: Exted your application class from MultidexApplication.

public class MyApplication extends MultiDexApplication { ... }

Or if you don't have a custom application class then change your AndroidManifest.xml class like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.myapp">
    <application
            android:name="android.support.multidex.MultiDexApplication" >
        ...
    </application>
</manifest>

Happy Coding :)