gson 2.13.0 causes StackOverflowError with Gradle license report plugins

[rarenatoe]

Gson version

2.13.0

Java / Android version

Android 14 (API 34)
Android 15 (API 35)

Used tools

• Maven; version:
• Gradle; version: 8
• ProGuard (attach the configuration file please); version:
• com.jaredsburrows:gradle-license-plugin:0.9.7
• React Native: 0.75.5

Description

The latest version of gson (2.13.0), released around April 11, 2025, causes StackOverflowErrors when used with Gradle license report generation tools, specifically with com.jaredsburrows:gradle-license-plugin:0.9.7.

Expected behavior

The license report generation task should complete successfully, as it does with gson 2.12.1 and earlier versions.

Actual behavior

When the project resolves to gson 2.13.0, the license report generation task fails with a StackOverflowError with no additional error message.

Reproduction steps

1. Create or use a project that includes the gradle-license-plugin:

plugins {
  id "com.jaredsburrows.license" version "0.9.7"
}

2. Include a dependency that uses gson 2.13.0 (or a library with wildcard dependency like com.google.code.gson:gson:+). In my case this happens with rollbar-react-native
3. Configure license report generation:

licenseReport {
  generateHtmlReport = false
  generateJsonReport = true
  copyHtmlReportToAssets = false
  copyJsonReportToAssets = true
}

4. Run the license report generation task:

./gradlew licenseReleaseReport

Exception stack trace

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:licenseReleaseReport'.
> java.lang.StackOverflowError (no error message)

Additional information:

• The error does not occur when forcing gson 2.12.1 with this workaround:

configurations.all {
  resolutionStrategy {
    force 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.12.1'
  }
}

• I discovered this issue in a React Native project using rollbar-react-native, which includes a wildcard dependency on gson, but the issue appears to be with gson 2.13.0 itself.

[ccodega]

Maybe there is something wrong in the artifacts repositories

[eamonnmcmanus]

Thanks for the detailed report! My default assumption is that this is a bug in the license plugin rather than Gson. I don't think we've changed anything relative to licenses recently.

I do see some similar-looking issues that have nothing to do with Gson:

• StackOverflowError when using Gradle module replacement rules
• License report task crashes with a StackOverflowError

So I think it would be worth reporting the issue in the gradle-license-plugin project, here.

[rarenatoe]

Sure, I’m happy to report it there as well if it helps cover all bases. That said, the gradle-license-plugin hasn’t had any changes in quite a while, and the issue only started occurring after upgrading Gson to 2.13.0 — so it seems likely the change is on that end.

I also looked into the issues you mentioned: the first one appears unrelated in terms of cause, and the second has gone idle without resolution from the original poster.

[rarenatoe]

Here is the gradle-license-plugin issue in case you want to follow-up on it: jaredsburrows/gradle-license-plugin#637

[eamonnmcmanus]

the issue only started occurring after upgrading Gson to 2.13.0 — so it seems likely the change is on that end.

I mean, clearly something about 2.13.0 is triggering the problem, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with 2.13.0. A StackOverflowError is unusual enough, so the fact that gradle-license-plugin has had two reported issues involving it certainly points the finger that way. My hope is that the failure you are seeing might be easier for the gradle-license-plugin maintainers to debug than the existing open issue.

[Marcono1234]

Looks like it is a bug with error_prone_annotations, which is a dependency of Gson and was updated as part of Gson 2.13.0, see google/error-prone#4924

There is a dependency cycle: error_prone_annotations -> error_prone_type_annotations --relocated--> error_prone_annotations

If you downgrade the transitive dependency to com.google.errorprone:error_prone_annotations:2.36.0 in your Gradle build script that should work around this issue for now.

[ccodega]

There is a new version available with the fixed error_prone issue: google/error-prone#4924 (comment)

[chadlwilson]

Should be fixed by #2851 , which is now merged.

[eamonnmcmanus]

I just released 2.13.1, which updates the error_prone_annotations dependency so this problem should be fixed.

[chadlwilson]

Thanks @eamonnmcmanus - much appreciated! 🙏