java.lang.InstantiationError: com.google.android.gms.ads.rewarded.RewardedAd

This is a strange error and I have tried many things to fix it for the last 3 days without any success.

Please note that it was WORKING and the App is live for more than a few months now, so all the credentials are correct and I have re-checked it many times.

So I don’t know exactly what happened but I have no other place to find solution that I finally post an issue here. I hope someone could help to give me pointers.

The moment rewardedAd.load() is called, the app crashed with error message as follows:

E/AndroidRuntime(27180): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): Process: com.me.app, PID: 27180
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): java.lang.InstantiationError: com.google.android.gms.ads.rewarded.RewardedAd
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at io.flutter.plugins.googlemobileads.FlutterRewardedAd.createRewardedAd(FlutterRewardedAd.java:154)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at io.flutter.plugins.googlemobileads.FlutterRewardedAd.load(FlutterRewardedAd.java:95)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at io.flutter.plugins.googlemobileads.GoogleMobileAdsPlugin.onMethodCall(GoogleMobileAdsPlugin.java:330)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at io.flutter.plugin.common.MethodChannel$IncomingMethodCallHandler.onMessage(MethodChannel.java:233)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at io.flutter.embedding.engine.dart.DartMessenger.handleMessageFromDart(DartMessenger.java:85)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at io.flutter.embedding.engine.FlutterJNI.handlePlatformMessage(FlutterJNI.java:818)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at android.os.MessageQueue.nativePollOnce(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at android.os.MessageQueue.next(MessageQueue.java:336)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:197)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:8167)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:496)
E/AndroidRuntime(27180): 	at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1100)
I/Process (27180): Sending signal. PID: 27180 SIG: 9

In my code: MobileAds.instance.initialize() is called in main.dart and once the initialization is done the RewardedAd is being initialized like this:

_rewardedAd = RewardedAd(
          adUnitId: AdManager.rewardedAdUnitId,
          listener: AdListener(
            onRewardedAdUserEarnedReward: (RewardedAd ad, RewardItem reward) {
              print('Rewarded Ad successful: $ad reward: $reward');
              // Give reward to user
            },
            onAdLoaded: (Ad ad) {
              setState(() {
                isAdsLoading = false;
              });
            },
            onAdFailedToLoad: (Ad ad, LoadAdError error) {
              print('Error Rewarded Video Ad failed to load: $error');
            },
          ),
          request: AdRequest())
        ..load();

If I remove the ..load() it won’t crash but it won’t ever load. Once again, this didn’t crash before.

What I have done to fix this:

1. I have rechecked all the credentials: App ID and Ad unit Id are all correct.
2. Go through the documentations again to make sure my AndroidManifest.xml are correctly set.
3. Tried both versions 0.12.1+1 and 0.11.0+4
4. Tried both debug and release mode
5. Tried both in Android Virtual Device and real device.
6. There are many others that I don’t remember anymore.

Note: The live version is working fine. And I have tried to upload the app to Closed Testing release, but it still crashed.

Plugin Version

version ^0.12.1+1

Steps to Reproduce

I’m not sure how to reproduce this. Because everything was working and the app is live without problems until 3 days ago.

1. Initialize: MobileAds.instance.initialize()
2. Initialize RewardedAds
3. Call rewardedAds.load() Expected results: Shouldn’t crash and shows the ad

Actual results: It crashes, the app closed and there was no exception caught except the FATAL EXCEPTION message

Logs

It is a long log, so I only include the error part here, but you can read all the full log here

[  +35 ms] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): Process: com.me.app, PID: 31757
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): java.lang.InstantiationError:
com.google.android.gms.ads.rewarded.RewardedAd
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
io.flutter.plugins.googlemobileads.FlutterRewardedAd.createRewardedAd(FlutterRewardedAd.java:154)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
io.flutter.plugins.googlemobileads.FlutterRewardedAd.load(FlutterRewardedAd.java:95)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
io.flutter.plugins.googlemobileads.GoogleMobileAdsPlugin.onMethodCall(GoogleMobileAdsPlugin.java:330)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
io.flutter.plugin.common.MethodChannel$IncomingMethodCallHandler.onMessage(MethodChannel.java:233)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
io.flutter.embedding.engine.dart.DartMessenger.handleMessageFromDart(DartMessenger.java:85)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
io.flutter.embedding.engine.FlutterJNI.handlePlatformMessage(FlutterJNI.java:818)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at android.os.MessageQueue.nativePollOnce(Native Method)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at android.os.MessageQueue.next(MessageQueue.java:336)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:197)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:8167)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at
com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:496)
[        ] E/AndroidRuntime(31757): 	at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1100)
[  +33 ms] I/Process (31757): Sending signal. PID: 31757 SIG: 9
[ +261 ms] Service protocol connection closed.
[        ] Lost connection to device.
[   +2 ms] executing: /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb -s 5a53414a33573398 forward
--list
[  +11 ms] Exit code 0 from: /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb -s 5a53414a33573398
forward --list
[        ] 5a53414a33573398 tcp:59154 tcp:34485
[   +1 ms] executing: /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb -s 5a53414a33573398 forward
--remove tcp:59154
[  +13 ms] DevFS: Deleting filesystem on the device
(file:///data/user/0/com.me.app/code_cache/my_appCGPZRY/my_app/)
[ +257 ms] Ignored error while cleaning up DevFS: TimeoutException after 0:00:00.250000: Future not completed
[   +3 ms] executing: /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb -s 5a53414a33573398 forward
--list
[  +16 ms] Exit code 0 from: /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb -s 5a53414a33573398
forward --list
[   +2 ms] "flutter run" took 140,682ms.
[   +4 ms] Running shutdown hooks
[        ] Shutdown hook priority 4
[   +1 ms] Shutdown hooks complete
[        ] exiting with code 0

Analyzing my_app...                                           
No issues found! (ran in 6.1s)

[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 2.0.5, on macOS 11.2.2 20D80 darwin-x64, locale en-US)
    • Flutter version 2.0.5 at /Users/ME/development/flutter
    • Framework revision adc687823a (12 days ago), 2021-04-16 09:40:20 -0700
    • Engine revision b09f014e96
    • Dart version 2.12.3
    • Pub download mirror https://pub.flutter-io.cn
    • Flutter download mirror https://storage.flutter-io.cn

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 30.0.2)
    • Android SDK at /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk
    • Platform android-30, build-tools 30.0.2
    • ANDROID_HOME = /Volumes/ME/Applications/Android/sdk
    • Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_242-release-1644-b3-6915495)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS
    • Xcode at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
    • Xcode 12.4, Build version 12D4e
    • CocoaPods version 1.10.1

[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
    • Chrome at /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome

[✓] Android Studio (version 4.1)
    • Android Studio at /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents
    • Flutter plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/9212-flutter
    • Dart plugin can be installed from:
      🔨 https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/6351-dart
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_242-release-1644-b3-6915495)

[✓] VS Code (version 1.55.2)
    • VS Code at /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents
    • Flutter extension version 3.8.0

[✓] Connected device (3 available)
    • SM G960U1 (mobile)  • 5a5341                         • android-arm64  • Android 10 (API 29)
    • ME iPho (mobile) • b3ebbe938628 • ios            • iOS 14.4.2
    • Chrome (web)        • chrome                                   • web-javascript • Google Chrome
      90.0.4430.85

• No issues found!

[jjliu15]

@zenkog can you try changing com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.8.0 to com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.7.0 in your app/build.gradle?

[zenkog]

So For now the workaround is by downgrading to: com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.7.0 in app/build.gradle.

I will close this issue for now and if someone else still facing issue we can re-open it Thanks

@zenkog can you try changing com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.8.0 to com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:19.7.0 in your app/build.gradle?