Play services version conflict with other plugins

I’ve experienced a issue today with building our android app, where it was coming up with an error:

com.android.build.api.transform.TransformException: java.util.zip.ZipException: duplicate entry: com/google/android/gms/internal/zzed.class

After some research I pinned this down to one of the plugins we are using requesting a different version of some play-services-xxxx from other plugins in the app. Turns out it was this plugin which recently introduced the use of build.gradle and it’s using play-services 9.+ and 9+. Looking at other plugins they are all using 11+ now and I believe this has caused the problem where different version of services are being requested.

I’ve locked the version of this plugin in our app to use 2.6.0 and the app builds again, it was pulling in 2.6.2. I’m not specifically saying there is a bug in this plugin because standalone it will work, but just asking the question whether there is a specific reason for using version 9+ and if I’m right in saying this could be causing the error above or was it something else between 2.6.0 and 2.6.2 that might be the culprit?

[ethanneff]

Hello hello again,

I pushed version 2.6.3 which removed the Google Play Services framework from our SDK. We need to do some additional work and testing internally before we can confirm the upgrade from 9+ to 11+, so we have removed the framework for now. The good news, however, is this framework removal will not impact your deep linking abilities with Branch.

Thank you for cordova plugins output. I will be using them to investigate a better long term solution so our SDK does not impact other SDKs.

To can follow this guide to upgrade your Branch Cordova SDK to 2.6.3.

Thanks,

[ethanneff]

There have been no other reports of problems in over a week. Safe to assume the problem has been resolved. Closing this ticket.