[all OSs] Android NDK 21 will be replaced in favor of 25 on August, 1st

[ddobranic]

Breaking changes

NDK r21 will be replaced by NDK r25

Target date

The propagation is starting on August, 1st and will take 2-3 days

The motivation for the changes

We are replacing r21 with r25 as we support two latest LTS versions according to our Software and image guidelines(we support 1 latest non-LTS and 2 latest LTS versions of NDK)

Possible impact

If your project depends on NDK r21 it can be broken

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions

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 r21 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"

[chrisbehanna]

We had no notice of this change at Mojang, and only learned of it today. We very strongly suggest delaying it two weeks so that we can prepare for it.

[ddobranic]

@chrisbehanna you can install NDK 21 in runtime. Please see 'Mitigation ways' section in the announcement, above.

[FlorianKirmaier]

Is there a way, to use an Image from before this change?

[mikhailkoliada]

Is there a way, to use an Image from before this change?

No, but you can still install r21 in runtime as described, it is the only possible solution.

[tabishhussain63]

Hi I am trying to run ndk 21.3.6528147 on iOS macOS-11 and I followed the mitigation ways but still getting this error when I am trying to access android.ndkDirectory in gradle.

NDK is not installed

Can you help what am I missing here is my install ndk Job steps

• task: CmdLine@2
  displayName: 'Install NDK 21.3.6528147'
  inputs:
  script: |
  ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
  SDKMANAGER=$ANDROID_HOME/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager
  echo y | $SDKMANAGER "ndk;21.3.6528147"
  echo 'ANDROID_NDK=/usr/local/lib/android/sdk/ndk/21.3.6528147'
  echo 'ANDROID_NDK_HOME=/usr/local/lib/android/sdk/ndk/21.3.6528147'
  echo 'ANDROID_NDK_LATEST_HOME=/usr/local/lib/android/sdk/ndk/21.3.6528147'
  echo 'ANDROID_NDK_ROOT=/usr/local/lib/android/sdk/ndk/21.3.6528147'

[miketimofeev]

@tabishhussain63 if you'd like to set env variables you need to do it another way

ANDROID_NDK="/usr/local/lib/android/sdk/ndk/21.3.6528147"
echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=ANDROID_NDK]$ANDROID_NDK"

and in the subtasks, the variable will be overridden by the new one.

[m-kuhn]

On Ubuntu 20.04 virtual images, the documentation mentions 25.0.8775105 is installed still every other run, it's 25.1.8937393 instead. I assume this is not on purpose?

[miketimofeev]

@m-kuhn this is the new image that is being deployed. We are going to finish the deployment and update the documentation today.