Ionic v2 Google Maps API Android Build Error: cann

Question

I'm trying to implement the Google Maps API using the Ionic docs as seen here.

I'm using the code samples exactly as supplied, but I'm getting the following error:

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 2.748 secs

Error: /path/to/platforms/android/gradlew: Command failed with exit code 1 Error output:
/path/to/platforms/android/src/plugin/google/maps/GoogleMaps.java:479: error: cannot access AbstractSafeParcelable
        options.compassEnabled(controls.getBoolean("compass"));
               ^
  class file for com.google.android.gms.common.internal.safeparcel.AbstractSafeParcelable not found
Note: Some input files use or override a deprecated API.
Note: Recompile with -Xlint:deprecation for details.
1 error

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':compileDebugJavaWithJavac'.
> Compilation failed; see the compiler error output for details

Has anyone seen/resolved this issue?

Answer 1

I was able to resolve the issue. While a lot of the suggestions I found revolved around installing missing repositories (you need Android Support Repository, Library, Play Services and Google Repository), I had all that in place. What was missing was that incorrect versioning is specified in project.properties when I used this command to add the plugin:

ionic plugin add cordova-plugin-googlemaps --variable API_KEY_FOR_ANDROID="YOUR_ANDROID_API_KEY_IS_HERE" --variable API_KEY_FOR_IOS="YOUR_IOS_API_KEY_IS_HERE"

In project.properties, I changed this:

cordova.system.library.4=com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:9.8.0
cordova.system.library.5=com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:9.8.0

To this:

cordova.system.library.4=com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:+
cordova.system.library.5=com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:+

That resolved the build error.