Xamarin Android 8.3 ignores android:extractNativeLibs in AndroidManifest.xml

[BeanStalka]

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a Hello world Xamarin android app.

2. Reference Mono

3. inherit from the Application class OR manually edit the AndroidManifest.xml to include extractNativeLibs<application android:label="@string/app_name" android:extractNativeLibs="false"></application>

4. Flip to Release config and build

5. go to archive manager and distribute via ad-hoc

6. find the APK in the signed folder

7. Use (7.zip) "7z.exe - l" (thats a lowercase L) and list contents of the apk

8. Note that the 'Compressed' column for the mono .so files is NOT the same as the 'Size' column.

Expected Behavior

The .so files listed via "7z.exe l" would have a 'Size' that matches the 'Compressed' IOW, NOT compressed.
This would indicate that the "android:extractNativeLibs="false" flag in the manifest was being respected.

Actual Behavior

The .so files listed via "7z.exe l" command have a 'Compressed' column about half of the 'Size' column. IOW, compressed.
This indicates that the "android:extractNativeLibs="false" flag in the manifest is being ignored.
IOW, the .so files remain compressed.

Version Information

Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017
Version 15.7.1
VisualStudio.15.Release/15.7.1+27703.2000
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 4.7.03056

Installed Version: Community

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2017 00369-60000-00001-AA218
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ASP.NET Web Frameworks and Tools 2017 5.2.60419.0
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Azure App Service Tools v3.0.0 15.0.40424.0
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Common Azure Tools 1.10
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Microsoft Visual Studio VC Package 1.0
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Mono Debugging for Visual Studio 4.10.5-pre (ab58725)
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Node.js Tools 1.4.11027.3
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SQL Server Data Tools 15.1.61804.210
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Visual C++ for Cross Platform Mobile Development (Android) 15.0.27625.00
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Xamarin.Android SDK 8.3.0.19 (HEAD/342b2ce96)
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Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Mac SDK 11.10.1.177 (7e782c1)
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Log File

[jonathanpeppers]

Yeah, I don't think Xamarin.Android supports this feature yet. But it's been around since Android 6.0?

Here is a good post from StackOverflow going over what android:extractNativeLibs is. Since we are manually packing the APK, we have to do something here to implement this.

[BeanStalka]

Jonathan

I know Android Studio respects the flag. Maybe you could draw inspiration from there.

I am looking for a work around while the Xamarin team implements a permanent fix.

Any workaround you think of please feel free to share it here and I will give it a go.

Thanks,

Bean

[jonathanpeppers]

Sorry... I think the only workaround is going to be to manually re-pack and re-sign the APK so that native libraries are uncompressed.

We also are shipping this feature in the next release: #1827

Perhaps you can then make this work by setting *.so files to be uncompressed?

[BeanStalka]

Jonathan,
can you explain this?

Perhaps you can then make this work by setting .so files to be uncompressed?
where would I set this ".so" value?

I looked at the link attached, but I do not know what piece of code you are commenting on

[NaderMichael]

Any updates?

[JonDouglas]

@BeanStalka I believe Jonathan was referring to using:

<AndroidStoreUncompressedFileExtensions>.so</AndroidStoreUncompressedFileExtensions>

Inside your project to workaround #1822

This is available in Xamarin.Android 9.0 and above.

[NaderMichael]

Is this workaround applicable to Xamarin.Forms v.3.1?

As I am using:
.so;.dll

But still see the compressed .so files within the generated APK, where the .dlls were uncompressed!!!

Any idea?

[JonDouglas]

@NaderMichael This workaround would be specifically for native libraries.

One example is the Android Things guideline:

https://developer.android.com/things/sdk/apis/native#packaging-native-code

extractNativeLibs requires the following to be true:

1. The .so files inside the APK cannot be compressed - they must be stored.
2. The .so files must be paged aligned using zipalign

The following is being tracked to more formally support this attribute:

#1906 (comment)

[jpobst]

It looks like this has been fixed:
#2579

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