The root cause: Google’s new aapt2 binary in AGP 8.12.0 started requiring CPU instructions (SSE4.1, SSSE3) that F-Droid’s build farm hardware doesn’t support. This is similar to a 2021 AGP 4.1.0 issue, but it has returned, and now affects hundreds of apps.
As an example, my open-source app MBCompass hit this issue. I downgraded to AGP 8.11.1 with Gradle 8.13 to make it build, but even then, F-Droid failed due to a baseline profile reproducibility bug in AGP. The only workaround was disabling baseline profiles and pushing yet another release.
This has led to multiple “maintenance” versions in a short time, confusing users and wasting developer time, just to work around infrastructure issues outside the developer’s control.
References:
- F-Droid admin issue: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/issues/593 - Catima example: https://github.com/CatimaLoyalty/Android/issues/2608 - MBCompass case: https://github.com/CompassMB/MBCompass/issues/88