Archiving apk using .net 7.0+ for android includes wrong platforms

[jfversluis]

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Issue moved from dotnet/maui#15971

• Please respond to @mosammo.

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From @mosammo on Monday, July 3, 2023 9:04:33 AM

Description

[severity:I’m unable to use this version]
Archiving apk using .net 7.0 for android with “Target platform” “ARM64” produces large apk that includes assemblies of other platforms “X86” and “x64” which increases apk size considerably.

Expected behavior is to only include assemblies of the selected target platform. For example if we select “ARM32” it should not include other platforms like “ARM64”, “X86” and “x64”.

Latest visual studio 2022 17.6.2

Steps to Reproduce

simple steps:

1. Create a maui project.
2. Right click the project to select the properties change Target platform to “ARM64” under Build->General
3. Build the project then archive apk.

To check it simply rename the apk as .zip file then open it and check folders “assemblies” and “bin” inside the apk. (please check attached screenshots)

Link to public reproduction project repository

https://github.com/mosammo/DotNetIssues

Version with bug

7.0.49

Last version that worked well

6.0

Affected platforms

Android

Affected platform versions

.net 7 for android

Did you find any workaround?

no

Relevant log output

No response

[jfversluis]

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Issue moved from dotnet/maui#15971

• Please respond to @mosammo.

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From @mosammo on Monday, July 3, 2023 9:07:22 AM

Example apk for platform "ARM64" including unselected platforms assemblies

[jonpryor]

@mosammo: When you say "Archiving apk", are you referring to the Archive Manager within Visual Studio Tools > Archive Manager…?

[ghost]

Hi @jfversluis. We have added the "need-info" label to this issue, which indicates that we have an open question for you before we can take further action. This issue will be closed automatically in 7 days if we do not hear back from you by then - please feel free to re-open it if you come back to this issue after that time.

[mosammo]

Archiving apk can be done in multiple ways:

• simplest option: right clicking the android project in "solution explorer" then click "Archive..."
• or use "Build" > "Archive..."
  After the apk is created simply rename the apk as .zip file then open it and check folders “assemblies” and “lib” inside the apk.
  
  (please check above screenshots)

[jpobst]

This option in VS seems to set:

<PlatformTarget>ARM64</PlatformTarget>

I think the first question is: is this the correct thing to set? I suspect we should be setting something like $(AndroidSupportedAbis) instead. @jonathanpeppers?

If so, then I think we need to give this to the UI team to set the correct property. I don't know how much they can change the "General" property pages in VS instead of the Android specific ones.

[jonathanpeppers]

My Project Options page is broken in VS right now (they know about it):

So, I can't get a screenshot...

RuntimeIdentifiers is what you want to set, but we should double-check the project options page has the option to adjust that value.

So, if you only want 64-bit, you could do:

<RuntimeIdentifiers>android-arm64;android-x64</RuntimeIdentifiers>

[jpobst]

Yeah, I don't see anything else that looks like runtime identifiers in the property pages.

[mosammo]

Thank you guys, turns out it is indeed just a visual studio UI issue and setting "RuntimeIdentifiers" manually fixes it
#8168 (comment)

[dellis1972]

The PlatformTarget is not the right property to change to these. You should probably leave that as AnyCPU for Android based projects (and probably all platforms to be honest).

RuntimeIdentifiers is the thing you can use to specify which android abi's you want to target.

[mosammo]

The PlatformTarget is not the right property to change to these. You should probably leave that as AnyCPU for Android based projects (and probably all platforms to be honest).

RuntimeIdentifiers is the thing you can use to specify which android abi's you want to target.

Yes, it's a visual studio UI bug in project settings: the displayed property "Platform target" has no actual use at all, while the needed property "Runtime Identifiers" is missing from the UI

[jpobst]

This issue likely occurs in the Visual Studio integration, which is owned by a different team who does not use GitHub for issue tracking.

Please use the tools available inside of VS to report this issue. This allows the issue to be routed to the correct team.

Thanks!