Issues in release build when minifyEnabled is set to true

Capacitor version

1.0.0-beta.4

Platform

Android

Issue

Strangely, many Capacitor elements behave differently in release build.

For instance, with debug we don’t have any issues, while release builds getting few crashes during testing all the time:

For instance, my friend’s Galaxy S6 Android 6.0 (debloated, not stock) always crashing on launch with release version, but not with debug.

Another issue with navigator.geolocation described in #738

And we noticed that for some reason Plugins.App.openUrl stops to work in release version. It just doing nothing.

I’m sure there also other issues specific to the release build. It makes me feel there some kind of global issue with release build in Capacitor.

What can I do to help debug those issues?

[Rajarml]

Here my proguard-rules.pro configuration which seems to ensure that any plugin is preserved during minification (tested with plugins: byteowls-capacitor-oauth2, capacitor-fcm, capacitor-secure-storage-plugin and those of capacitor-android):

-keep,allowobfuscation @interface com.getcapacitor.NativePlugin,com.getcapacitor.PluginMethod
-keep @com.getcapacitor.NativePlugin class * { *; }
-keepclasseswithmembernames class * {
  @com.getcapacitor.PluginMethod public *;
}

It could be put here and, as an embedded library proguard file, should be handled by any android/capacitor project.

Maybe it could be optimized but it does the job for me 😄!

[Zapominacz]

Hi @hschindler

Native api in capacitor has changed. For Capacitor v3 (ionic and angular version does not matter) with minifyEnabled true we should write in proguard-rules.pro:

-keep @com.getcapacitor.annotation.CapacitorPlugin public class * {
    @com.getcapacitor.PluginMethod public <methods>;
}

EDIT: Added directives for permissions and activities result:

-keep @com.getcapacitor.annotation.CapacitorPlugin public class * {
    @com.getcapacitor.annotation.PermissionCallback <methods>;
    @com.getcapacitor.annotation.ActivityCallback <methods>;
    @com.getcapacitor.PluginMethod public <methods>;
}

If older (v2) plugins are present, this also should be added:

-keep @com.getcapacitor.NativePlugin public class * {
    @com.getcapacitor.PluginMethod public <methods>;
}

And, if Cordova plugins are still present:

-keep public class * extends org.apache.cordova.* {
    public <methods>;
    public <fields>;
}

Tested on fresh project created with ionic cli with Capacitor v3, angular v12 and ionic v5