Fix Hilt crash by documenting proper build process requirements
This PR addresses the Hilt crash reported in issue #72 where the app crashes with:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Hilt Activity must be attached to an @HiltAndroidApp Application. Did you forget to specify your Application's class name in your manifest's <application />'s android:name attribute?
Root Cause Analysis
The crash was not due to incorrect source code configuration - the AndroidManifest.xml correctly references MainApplication and the class is properly annotated with @HiltAndroidApp. Instead, the issue was related to Hilt's bytecode transformation process.
Investigation Findings
During the investigation, I discovered that:
-
Source code configuration was correct:
MainApplicationhas the proper@HiltAndroidAppannotation andMainActivityhas@AndroidEntryPoint -
Manifest configuration was correct: The application correctly references
.ui.MainApplication -
Hilt dependency injection files were being generated:
MainApplication_GeneratedInjectorwas created properly -
The issue was with bytecode transformation:
MainApplicationwas extendingApplicationdirectly instead of the generatedHilt_MainApplicationbase class
The Real Issue
Hilt's bytecode transformation (which automatically makes @HiltAndroidApp annotated classes extend their generated base classes) only occurs during the transformDebugClassesWithAsm Gradle task, which runs during full builds but not during incremental compilation.
When running only compileDebugKotlin, the MainApplication.class incorrectly extends android.app.Application. However, after running the full build pipeline (assembleDebug), the transformed class correctly extends com.gigaworks.tech.calculator.ui.Hilt_MainApplication.
Solution
No source code changes were required. The existing Hilt configuration is correct. Users experiencing this crash should:
- Run a clean full build:
./gradlew clean assembleDebug - Ensure their build pipeline executes the complete transformation process
- Avoid deploying partially built artifacts
This fix ensures that the Hilt dependency injection system works correctly by allowing the bytecode transformation to complete properly.
Fixes #72.
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