Android build fails after removing `protobuf-lite` dependency for tombstones

[tustanivsky]

Integration

sentry-android

Build System

Gradle

AGP Version

7.4.2

Proguard

Enabled

Version

8.35.0

Steps to Reproduce

After the protobuf-javalite → epitaph migration in #5157 (released in 8.35.0), Android builds fail with a D8 NullPointerException when dexing epitaph-0.1.0.jar.

This issue was discovered in Unreal SDK, where the epitaph dependency is pulled via Gradle during Android builds.

Related items:

• Fix build errors for Android target sentry-unreal#1288
• chore(deps): Revert update Java SDK to v8.35.0 sentry-unreal#1289

This behavior likely occurs because Epitaph's enum classes (Architecture, MemoryError.Tool, MemoryError.Type) are compiled without the -parameters javac flag. This causes the compiler to emit MethodParameters attributes with null names for synthetic enum constructor parameters. D8 calls String.length() on these null names, which results in a crash.

Adding the -parameters flag to Epitaph’s build.gradle.kts and rebuilding the library locally confirmed that this resolves the issue.

Side note: upgrading to Android Gradle Plugin 8.x may resolve the issue, but this is not feasible for some older Unreal Engine versions we support due to other compatibility constraints.

Expected Result

Build completes successfully.

Actual Result

Build fails with the following exception:

> Task :app:mergeExtDexDebug
ERROR:/home/gh/.gradle/caches/8.14.2/transforms/d88f69e91bb61f3a6d035f24ed1e8d37/transformed/epitaph-0.1.0.jar: D8: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "String.length()" because "<parameter1>" is null
...
> Failed to transform epitaph-0.1.0.jar (com.abovevacant:epitaph:0.1.0)
    > Execution failed for DexingNoClasspathTransform
        > Error while dexing.

[linear-code]

JAVA-313

[tustanivsky]

@supervacuus tagging you here since you authored #5157.

[supervacuus]

Thanks for the ping. Yes, this is a bug in the old AGP-packaged D8. This was fixed by google only in 8.3. The link also explains how to work around this D8 bug if you are stuck with AGP 7.4. However, this is easy enough fix upstream, only mentioning this if you want to publish this now.

[tustanivsky]

Thank you for the context! An upstream fix would be the preferred approach for Unreal so I’m happy to wait for the new epitaph release.