Monthly Archives: March 2019

Apktool – build error – brut.common.BrutException: could not exec (exit code = 1)

I have an ongoing Android app ‘modification’ project that I periodically need to perform updates on. I recently went to disassemble, re-modify, and reassemble the new version of the APK and was presented with this error:

AndroidManifest.xml:1: error: No resource identifier found for attribute 'compileSdkVersion' in package 'android'
AndroidManifest.xml:1: error: No resource identifier found for attribute 'compileSdkVersionCodename' in package 'android'
W:
Exception in thread "main" brut.androlib.AndrolibException: brut.androlib.AndrolibException: brut.common.BrutException: could not exec (exit code = 1): […APK path information…]
at brut.androlib.Androlib.buildResourcesFull(Androlib.java:492)
at brut.androlib.Androlib.buildResources(Androlib.java:426)
at brut.androlib.Androlib.build(Androlib.java:305)
at brut.androlib.Androlib.build(Androlib.java:270)
at brut.apktool.Main.cmdBuild(Main.java:227)
at brut.apktool.Main.main(Main.java:75)

I updated apktool/JDK and made sure everything else with my setup was correct. After a little digging I found that I just needed to run a cleanup to resolve the issue. After running ‘apktool empty-framework-dir‘ I was able to successfully reassemble the APK.