Bitrise build fails for Android 13 (API level 33)

Question

Bitrise fails to build an Android app which targets Android 13 (API level 33).

I've checked on Bitrise stacks and android-33 is only present in linux-docker-android-20.04 stack. This is unsuitable for me as I develop cross-platform app and use the other stack which depends on macOS.

Is there any command which can be used in bitrise.yaml to install Android 33 API? I tried to find Bitrise guides on this case but found none.

Here is the the error from Bitrise:

/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/External/xbuild/Xamarin/Android/Xamarin.Android.Tooling.targets(100,5): error XA5207: Could not find android.jar for API level 33. This means the Android SDK platform for API level 33 is not installed. Either install it in the Android SDK Manager (Tools > Open Android SDK Manager...), or change the Xamarin.Android project to target an API version that is installed. (/usr/local/share/android-sdk/platforms/android-33/android.jar missing.)

Answer 1

The android-sdk-update step uses the deprecated sdk-tools from the /tools/ folder which require Java 8 to run. Presumably the default Java Version on your Bitrise machine is 11. My solution was:

1. Set Java version to 8
2. Install build-tools 33.0.2 (via the android-sdk-update step)
3. Set Java version to 17 (or whatever version you need)

It seems hacky but since the android-sdk-update step hasn't been updated for more than 6 years, I'm just glad it somehow works.