Android Gradle Project upgrading build tools to 21.0.1: aapt throws Exception

Question

We have an android gradle project. Today I wanted to upgrade the android build tools version from 20 to 21.0.1, but now the aapt is failing.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':myproject-android:processDebugResources'.
> com.android.ide.common.internal.LoggedErrorException: Failed to run command:
        c:\_DEVELOP\AndroidSDK\sdk\build-tools\21.0.1\aapt.exe package -f --no-crunch -I c:\_DEVELOP\AndroidSDK\sdk\platforms\android-16\android.jar -M D:\_MY_PROJECT\trunk\myproject_bin\gradle\build\re
lease\myproject-android\intermediates\manifests\full\debug\AndroidManifest.xml -S D:\_MY_PROJECT\trunk\myproject_bin\gradle\build\release\myproject-android\intermediates\res\debug -A D:\_MY_PROJECT\tr
unk\myproject_bin\gradle\build\release\myproject-android\intermediates\assets\debug -m -J D:\_MY_PROJECT\trunk\myproject_bin\gradle\build\release\myproject-android\generated\source\r\debug -F D:\_PIVOSC
ORE_P4\trunk\myproject_bin\gradle\build\release\myproject-android\intermediates\res\resources-debug.ap_ --debug-mode --custom-package com.myproject.app -0 apk --output-text-symbols D:\_MY_PROJECT\trunk\
myproject_bin\gradle\build\release\myproject-android\intermediates\symbols\debug
Error Code:
        255

I had some warnings saying:

libpng warning: iCCP: Not recognizing known sRGB profile that has been edited

I fixed those, but there are 6 more in the appcompat-v7 library.

If I revert the build tools version to 20 everything works fine.

Has anyone came across this problem?

Answer 1

This worked for me:

It's metadata added by tools like Photoshop that isn't even honored by Android. Strip it.

brew install exiftool
find . -path '*src/main/res/*' -name '*.png' -exec exiftool -overwrite_original -all= {} \;

Source: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/adt-dev/rjTQ_STR3OE/-UcNQRISTKsJ

P.S. Tested on Mac only.