Manifest merger exception: SAXParseException

Question

We have a project that uses different product flavors and product types. When I select a particular flavor, this error is generated:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:processSomeFlavorDebugManifest'.
> com.android.manifmerger.ManifestMerger2$MergeFailureException: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Content is not allowed in prolog.

Here is what I have tried:

ran the task with -info, -debug, -scan, not very helpful.
reviewed the two manifest files to ensure there are no weird characters or spaces in the prolog
cleaned project
rebuilt project
invalidated cache and restart
deleted AndroidSDK and Android Studio (also AndroidStudio3.5 directories in ~/Library/...)

Weird thing is, this exact branch builds perfectly fine for others. Did anyone encounter this before?

it might be already answered here checkout https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3030903/content-is-not-allowed-in-prolog-when-parsing-perfectly-valid-xml-on-gae — Muhammed Yalçın Kuru, Dec 10 '19 at 11:23
I don't think it’s the manifest itself since it builds on other machines and build server. — Takeshi Kaga, Dec 10 '19 at 15:53
_"ran the task with -info, -debug, -scan, not very helpful"_ Not very, but you got something? Some extra info might help... — Onik, Dec 18 '19 at 15:26
check this one https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5138696/org-xml-sax-saxparseexception-content-is-not-allowed-in-prolog — Gundu Bandgar, Dec 19 '19 at 06:17

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 13 '19 at 03:17

Try This Solution:

Gradle assemble -info gave me the hint that the Manifests have different SDK Versions and cannot be merged.

I needed to edit my Manifests and build.gradle file and everything worked again.

To be clear you need to edit the uses-SDK in the AndroidManifest.xml

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="14" android:targetSdkVersion="16" />

and the android section, particularly minSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion in the build.Gradle file

android {
    compileSdkVersion 17
    buildToolsVersion "17.0.0"

    defaultConfig {
        minSdkVersion 14
        targetSdkVersion 16
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 18 '19 at 05:47

This error is thrown from "manifest merger" inside of android gradle plugin.

Try to add this line to the manifest node in your main manifest file.

xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"

Note: You need to use the same android support library version. You need to use support library 28.0.0 version.

I hope it'll help you..!

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 18 '19 at 23:07

check that your manifest have this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
          package="yourpacagename">

for more info check this issue on github

also all your xml files should have this line at the beginning

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Manifest merger exception: SAXParseException

3 Answers3