Google Maps SDK is crashing • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#11

Post by saagarjha » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

I have heard that this applies to both iOS and Android, by the way.

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#12

Post by AdamJacobMuller » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

dliff wrote: post #4

booi wrote: post #3

i mean it's not the SDK that's crashing right, the service changed somehow.

The SDK is crashing. It's likely crashing because the service changed, but it's causing actual crashes on iOS and Android devices which rely on the SDK.

And even worse it doesn't crash in realtime. It crashes parsing locally cached data caused by a bad update, meaning this possibly can't be quickly fixed merely by fixing the API.

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#13

Post by fooey » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

seems to be fixed, but if you've had the crash you have to Clear Storage or you'll keep crashing

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#14

Post by williamstein » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

Here's what the Whistle (dog tracking app that uses the Google Maps SDK) just sent everybody via email:

> "Hi William, We have identified an issue stemming from an outage with Google Maps that is causing the Whistle app to immediately crash upon opening. Our team is aware of the issue and monitoring the situation closely. While there is no estimated time for resolution from Google, rest assured that the safety of Bella is still our top priority. Please keep Bella close for the time being. [...]"

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#15

Post by anaphor » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

Looks like you have to hit "Clear Storage" on Android in order to get it working again (tested it with Uber). That is, not the cache, but the actual application data. I.e. this will require users to wipe any data being locally stored and log back in again. This is pretty bad.

Edit: Google has confirmed this is the case https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/154855417#comment181 but apparently the data will be invalidated within a few hours.

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#16

Post by geoffbp » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

No-one is good anywhere, why is it crashing ;)

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#17

Post by lnreddy » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

Uber and Lyft crash for me on Android.

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#18

Post by whalesalad » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

Reminder to think of your application as a system composed of many sub-systems, where any sub-system can fail at any time. Plan for this, engineer for this.

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#19

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #12

dliff wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SDK is crashing. It's likely crashing because the service changed, but it's causing actual crashes on iOS and Android devices which rely on the SDK.

And even worse it doesn't crash in realtime. It crashes parsing locally cached data caused by a bad update, meaning this possibly can't be quickly fixed merely by fixing the API.

Imagine writing a test for that. Just to replicate it repeatedly. Would they be able to use a phone emulator and point it to the old api to cache data, and then go to the new api to replicate the failure?

Re: Google Maps SDK is crashing

#20

Post by tersers » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:34 PM UTC

whalesalad wrote: post #18

Reminder to think of your application as a system composed of many sub-systems, where any sub-system can fail at any time. Plan for this, engineer for this.

To an extent due diligence is required of any library, but there must always be some guarantees for the benefit of the developer. It's unreasonable to expect a developer to accommodate for the failure of any SDK call.