diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index c8c4a1368e..1dff57ad25 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 # Contributing to sentry-java
 
-We love pull requests from everyone. 
+We love pull requests from everyone.
 We suggest opening an issue to discuss bigger changes before investing on a big PR.
 
 # Requirements
 
-The project currently requires you run JDK version `1.8.x`.
+The project currently requires you run JDK 11.
 
-## Android 
+## Android
 
 This repository is a monorepo which includes Java and Android libraries.
 If you'd like to contribute to Java and don't have an Android SDK with NDK installed,
diff --git a/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/ManifestMetadataReader.java b/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/ManifestMetadataReader.java
index e744e20412..4b7d0cd7b5 100644
--- a/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/ManifestMetadataReader.java
+++ b/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/ManifestMetadataReader.java
@@ -231,18 +231,21 @@ static void applyMetadata(
         options.setProguardUuid(
             readString(metadata, logger, PROGUARD_UUID, options.getProguardUuid()));
 
-        SdkVersion sdkVersion = options.getSdkVersion();
-        Objects.requireNonNull(sdkVersion, "Property options.sdkVersion must not be null.");
-        final String sdkVersionName = readString(metadata, logger, SDK_NAME, sdkVersion.getName());
-        if (sdkVersionName != null) {
-          sdkVersion.setName(sdkVersionName);
-        }
-        final String sdkVersionVersion =
-            readString(metadata, logger, SDK_VERSION, sdkVersion.getVersion());
-        if (sdkVersionVersion != null) {
-          sdkVersion.setVersion(sdkVersionVersion);
+        SdkVersion sdkInfo = options.getSdkVersion();
+        if (sdkInfo != null) {
+          final String sdkName = readString(metadata, logger, SDK_NAME, sdkInfo.getName());
+          if (sdkName != null) {
+            sdkInfo.setName(sdkName);
+          }
+          final String sdkVersion = readString(metadata, logger, SDK_VERSION, sdkInfo.getVersion());
+          if (sdkVersion != null) {
+            sdkInfo.setVersion(sdkVersion);
+          }
+          options.setSdkVersion(sdkInfo);
+        } else {
+          // Should always be set by the Options constructor but let's error out if that changes.
+          Objects.requireNonNull(sdkInfo, "Property options.sdkVersion must not be null.");
         }
-        options.setSdkVersion(sdkVersion);
       }
 
       options