Offer to help: Fixing AndroidX build issues and planning for Android 15 (16KB) compatibility

[barissalihbabacan]

Hello @dung2le and ConnectSDK maintainers,

First, I want to say thank you for creating and maintaining this very useful library. My team and I rely on it, and we appreciate your recent updates, including the one for libc++_shared.so.

I am opening this issue because I would like to offer my help in addressing two critical problems that are currently preventing the community from using the latest versions of the SDK effectively.

1. Project Buildability: The master branch of this Core project currently fails to build from a clean checkout (e.g., via JitPack). I believe this is because it's missing the necessary AndroidX flags in gradle.properties. This seems to be the reason why version 2.1.6 is not usable for many developers right now.
2. Android 15 Compatibility: As you know, the upcoming 16KB page size alignment is a major requirement. While libc++_shared.so has been updated, the GStreamer libraries (libgstreamer_android.so, etc.) still need to be recompiled with 16KB alignment support.

My Proposal & Question:

I have investigated the build issues and I am confident that I can fix them. I would like to prepare and submit a Pull Request to make this project buildable again for everyone.

For the more complex 16KB GStreamer issue, I am also willing to investigate the recompilation process, but I wanted to ask for your thoughts first.

My main question is: Are you currently accepting contributions? If so, I would be happy to prepare and submit a PR for the build fixes as a first step. I believe getting the project into a stable, buildable state is the most important starting point for the whole community.

Please let me know what you think. I'm eager to help get this great project back on track.

Thank you for your time and all your work.

Best regards,
Barış Salih Babacan
Astro-bosss

[dung2le]

Hi @Astro-bosss

First, thank you for your interest in ConnectSDK.

About your Proposal & Question:

Are you currently accepting contributions? ==> Yes, please submit your PR with a detail description of your build environment. We’ll double-check it, and if everything looks good and useful, we’ll merge it into the master branch.

Best regards,
Dung2le.

[barissalihbabacan]

Hi @dung2le,

Thank you so much for the quick and positive response! I am very happy to hear that you are accepting contributions.

I am currently working on preparing the Pull Request. I have already fixed the AndroidX and Gradle build issues on my local fork and I'm now resolving the final dependency errors to ensure the project compiles successfully.

While I am doing this, I wanted to ask a specific question about the most critical issue: the 16 KB page alignment for GStreamer.

As you know, the pre-compiled GStreamer libraries (libgstreamer_android.so, etc.) inside the jniLibs folder are not 16KB-aligned. Recompiling the entire GStreamer framework for Android is a very complex task.

My question is: Do you or the team have any existing plans or internal resources for recompiling these GStreamer .so files with 16 KB support (-Wl,-z,max-page-size=16384)?

Any information or guidance you have on this specific topic would be incredibly helpful and would save a huge amount of effort for this PR.

I will continue to work on the build-fix PR in the meantime.

Thank you again for your support!

Best regards,
Astro-bosss

[dung2le]

Hi @Astro-bosss

I have contacted an MS ThinQ engineer. Here is some updated information:

• Regarding the first point, "Project Buildability": he is not entirely sure if it is a real issue. He is currently using version 2.1.6 via JitPack like this
  implementation 'com.github.ConnectSDK:Connect-SDK-Android-Lite:2.1.6'

• Regarding the second point "Android 15 Compatibility": Yes, MS ThinQ will rebuilt some binary .so files with 16 KB support. Once testing is fully completed, they’ll proceed with the request to apply the changes.

Best regards,
Dung2le.

[barissalihbabacan]

Hi @dung2le,

Thanks again for the very helpful information and for checking with the engineer. It's great to know an official fix for the .so files is on the way.

Just to let you know, to provide a stable option for developers in the meantime, I've published a temporary "lite" version of the library on my fork: v5.2.3-lite.

This "lite" version is fully modernized and includes support for most services. The only modification is the removal of the GStreamer binaries to resolve the critical 16KB page size crashes on modern devices.

This means the release is now stable and provides the following functionalities:

• What works in this version: All core features including DIAL, DLNA, WebOS, Roku, Google Cast, and Fire TV.
• What is temporarily disabled: The legacy LG Cast (Screen Mirroring) feature, which depends on GStreamer.

I was just following up to see if you have any updates on how the testing process is going for the new 16KB-compatible .so files. Also, I was wondering if the team has any rough estimate for when the official fix might be released? No pressure at all, of course, just trying to plan for future updates on my end.

Once the official GStreamer binaries are available, I plan to reintegrate them to publish a new, full-featured version that restores the LG Cast functionality.

Any information you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
@Astro-bosss

[barissalihbabacan]

Hi @dung2le,

Update regarding the integration:

I have successfully merged the official 16KB-aligned binaries (which you recently pushed) with the modernized build system.

🚀 I have submitted PR #170 which combines your binary fixes with the necessary build fixes.

This PR resolves the original crash reported in #163 and makes the project buildable on modern Android Studio versions out-of-the-box.

I verified the build and runtime stability (on Pixel 9 / Android 15) via a JitPack release. It is ready for your review and merge.

Best regards,
Barış Salih Babacan