Android Studio build error - Multiple dex files define Landroid/support/v4/

I am unable to build my project in Android Studio. I get the following error:

Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] Unable to execute DX
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] com.android.dx.util.DexException: Multiple dex files define Landroid/support/v4/accessibilityservice/AccessibilityServiceInfoCompat$AccessibilityServiceInfoVersionImpl;
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.readSortableTypes(DexMerger.java:592)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.getSortedTypes(DexMerger.java:550)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.mergeClassDefs(DexMerger.java:531)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.mergeDexBuffers(DexMerger.java:168)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.merge.DexMerger.merge(DexMerger.java:186)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.mergeLibraryDexBuffers(Main.java:300)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.run(Main.java:232)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at org.jetbrains.android.compiler.tools.AndroidDxRunner.runDex(AndroidDxRunner.java:147)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at org.jetbrains.android.compiler.tools.AndroidDxRunner.main(AndroidDxRunner.java:276)
Error:Android Dex: [RaditazAndroid] at com.intellij.rt.execution.CommandLineWrapper.main(CommandLineWrapper.java:121)


However, this error means nothing to me. It does not provide clues as to where I should begin fixing my project. Has anybody encountered something similar?

11 Answers
11

For anyone who is interested, I solved my own problem. My mistake was that I had pasted android-support-v4.jar and google-play-services.jar in all of my project's module lib folders (my project consists of 3 modules). What I had to do instead was to paste these jars only into my main module's lib folder, and the other modules would automatically reference them.

Away from Android Studio, I opened the project in finder/workspace and did this:

1- MyProject folder -> build -> intermediate -> dex-cache -> cache.xml, and deleted all support-v4.jar items.

2- Also away from Android Studio, Went to every module in my project -> lib folder -> and deleted support-v4.jar as well.

Then cleaned the project and ran it and it worked thanks god :)

In case you have:

compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:24.2.0'
compile('com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.2.0') exclude group: 'com.google.android', module: 'support-v4'


in your project, add also:

compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:24.2.0'


or

compile 'com.android.support:design:24.2.0'


I had the same error.Solved it by adding to gradle file.

dependencies
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:8.3.0'
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.1.0'
compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.1.0'



In my case the problem was in module sdk version. I changed it from 2.2 to 4.4 and the problem was solved.

I had the same error.

Removing a library(jtwitter.jar) form my-project/app/libs folder helped me.

Then cleaned the project and ran it and it worked.

Clean and rebuild was all it took for mine to start working.

I used a different approach by merging ABS res folder with my res folder and using ActionBarSherlock.jar as a global lib.

Works well so far and hope this help someone! But this is a hack since I was fed up of doing many things and I can't use Gradle since some of the other developers using Eclipse ADT without Gradle.

Root Cause for the issue is using android-support-v4 in ABS and my project both and it's complicating DEX.

In case someone else was having this problem with the Project Tango examples provided via Github, I solved it by commenting the following line out in the app's build.gradle file for those projects which failed to run:

build.gradle

compile fileTree(dir: external_lib_prefix + '/jar', include: ['**/*.jar'])

compile fileTree(dir: external_lib_prefix + '/jar', include: ['**/*.jar'])

I had same issue in Android Studio 2.3, in my case I had a mixture of version numbers which threw the build out, I changed:

dependencies
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-wearable:7.5.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics:7.5.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-drive:8.4.0'



to

dependencies
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-wearable:8.4.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics:8.4.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-drive:8.4.0'



For others wondering why this problem still persist even doing all other things suggested, This may help.

For me problem started when i added Glide library

dependencies
.........
implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.8.0'
.........



and i had added already.

implementation 'com.android.support:design:26.1.0'


Which was contradicting with Glide support library somewhere.

Solution: Remove or downgrade your Glide support version.

implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.0.0'


By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy, and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies.