[all OSs] Android NDK 22 will be replaced in favor of 24, version 23 will be set as the default one on June, 6

[miketimofeev]

Breaking changes

There are two changes:

• Ndk 22 will be replaced by Ndk 24
• Ndk 23 will be the new default (ndk-bundle) instead of Ndk 21

Target date

The propagation is starting on June, 6 and will take 3-4 days

The motivation for the changes

According to our Software and image guidelines we support 1 latest non-LTS and 2 latest LTS versions of NDK. Currently, our image contains NDK r22 whereas the latest non-LTS is 24. LTS version of NDK 21 is not supported so we would like to set version 23 as the new default.

Possible impact

• If your project depends on NDK r22 it can be broken
• If your project relies on ndk-bundle based on r21 it can be broken

Virtual environments affected

• Ubuntu 18.04
• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• macOS 10.15
• macOS 11
• macOS 12
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Mitigation ways

• To install NDK r22 in runtime use the following snippets;
  • Windows

  $sdkRoot = "C:\Android\android-sdk"
  $sdkManager = "$sdkRoot\cmdline-tools\latest\bin\sdkmanager.bat"
  Install-AndroidSDKPackages -AndroidSDKManagerPath $sdkManager `
                             -AndroidSDKRootPath $sdkRoot `
                             -AndroidPackages "ndk;21.4.7075529"

  • macOS

   ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
   SDKMANAGER=$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager
   echo y | $SDKMANAGER "ndk;21.4.7075529"

  • Ubuntu

  ANDROID_ROOT=/usr/local/lib/android
  ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=${ANDROID_ROOT}/sdk
  SDKMANAGER=${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager
  echo "y" | $SDKMANAGER "ndk;21.4.7075529"

• To change default NDK version (ndk-bundle) use the following snippets:
  • Windows

    $sdkRoot = "C:\Android\android-sdk"
    $sdkManager = "$sdkRoot\cmdline-tools\latest\bin\sdkmanager.bat"
    $ndkRoot = "$sdkRoot\ndk-bundle"
    New-Item -Path $ndkRoot -ItemType SymbolicLink -Value "$sdkRoot\ndk\21.4.7075529" -Force

  • macOS

    ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
     ln -sfn $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/21.4.7075529 $ANDROID_HOME/ndk-bundle

  • Ubuntu

   ANDROID_ROOT=/usr/local/lib/android
   ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=${ANDROID_ROOT}/sdk
   ANDROID_NDK_ROOT=${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/ndk-bundle
   ln -sfn $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/ndk/21.4.7075529 $ANDROID_NDK_ROOT

[mikhailkoliada]

Will be deployed next week.

[Bercon]

At least my builds are failing since the NDK 23 being default was deployed already?

[miketimofeev]

@Bercon no, it was not. The new image rollout will start today

[Bercon]

After further debugging, it appears my issue is most likely ndk 23 updating from 23.1 to 23.2 which didn't work out of the box with https://github.com/moritz-wundke/Boost-for-Android we are using.

[MBilderbeek]

Thanks for this work! But how exactly can I make sure my build uses ndk r24 instead of the default 23 on the Ubuntu 22.04 image? See https://github.com/openMSX/openMSX/actions/workflows/build_snapshots.yml
Our code needs clang-13, so ndk r24 is the only way...

[miketimofeev]

@MBilderbeek you can try the following snippet to replace ndk-bundle with NDK r24

 ANDROID_ROOT=/usr/local/lib/android
 ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=${ANDROID_ROOT}/sdk
 ANDROID_NDK_ROOT=${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/ndk-bundle
 ln -sfn $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/ndk/24.0.8215888 $ANDROID_NDK_ROOT

[MBilderbeek]

@miketimofeev Thanks, got it working by just adding this step:
echo "$ANDROID_NDK_LATEST_HOME/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin" >> $GITHUB_PATH
However, for some reason, the clang-14 in NDK r24 can't compile what normal clang can, and thus we have failing builds. This is probably an NDK question, but if someone has any idea, please contact me.
In detail: it doesn't recognize std::identity and several other C++-20 features. Standard is probably specified, though.

[soroshsabz]

related to dotnet/android#6808 (comment)