Invalid drawable tag vector

Question

Im trying to use vector drawables on pre lollipop devices. I did all as instructed here but i still get this crash.

build.gradle:

Answer 1

If you have this exception issue with drawableLeft,drawableRight,drawableTop, drawableXxx etc... And your project buildToolsVersion > 26.0.2.

Go check your app level gradle file, remove vectorDrawables.useSupportLibrary = true if exists, then crash gone.

This because buildTools will dispose vector resource after 26.0.2, but somehow conflict with vectorDrawables.useSupportLibrary = true.

Tested at 2019/03/27.

(if you can't find your buildToolsVersion in you app level gradle file, this mean you're using Android plugin for Gradle 3.0.0 or higher, your project automatically uses a default version of the build tools that the plugin specifies. In this case your buildToolsVersion already large than 26.0.2)

Answer 2

I'm surprised that this is not mentioned here yet.

This crash happens often with:

android:drawableRight
android:drawableLeft
android:drawableTop
android:drawableBottom
android:drawableStart
android:drawableEnd

A common fix is to create another drawable that wraps the drawable with <selector><item android:drawable=""></selector>, or to set the compound drawable using code, but nowadays you can instead use:

app:drawableRightCompat
app:drawableLeftCompat
app:drawableTopCompat
app:drawableBottomCompat
app:drawableStartCompat
app:drawableEndCompat

This was added to AppCompatTextView in appcompat 1.1.0-alpha01.

To use the attribute I've had to use AppCompat views instead of usual ones, eg. I've used AppCompatButton instead of Button.

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Not sure if you set vectorDrawables.useSupportLibrary true and AppCompatDelegate.setCompatVectorFromResourcesEnabled(true) (I have both). Check this article from Nick Butcher: https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/using-vector-assets-in-android-apps-4318fd662eb9.