NoMethodError on standard Android runtime object

Question

Heya, I get a very strange error that I just cannot sort out when attempting to serialize objects to JSON on all android platforms, from 1.5 through to 2.2 (both on phones and emulators).

I receive this error:

E/AndroidRuntime(21017): Uncaught handler: thread AsyncTask #2 exiting due to uncaught exception
E/AndroidRuntime(21017): java.lang.RuntimeException: An error occured while executing doInBackground()
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at android.os.AsyncTask$3.done(AsyncTask.java:200)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerSetException(FutureTask.java:273)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.setException(FutureTask.java:124)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:307)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:137)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1068)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:561)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1096)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017): Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.json.JSONStringer.object
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at com.qype.radar.api.json.JsonSerializationHelper.startModel(JsonSerializationHelper.java:119)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at com.qype.radar.api.json.JsonSerializationHelper.serializeCheckin(JsonSerializationHelper.java:94)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at com.qype.radar.api.QypeApiImpl.submitCheckin(QypeApiImpl.java:157)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at com.qype.radar.activities.tasks.SubmitCheckinTask.doCheckedInBackground(SubmitCheckinTask.java:29)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at com.qype.radar.activities.tasks.SubmitCheckinTask.doCheckedInBackground(SubmitCheckinTask.java:1)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at com.github.droidfu.concurrent.BetterAsyncTask.doInBackground(BetterAsyncTask.java:154)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:185)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:305)
E/AndroidRuntime(21017):    ... 4 more

when arriving at the line 'stringer.object' from 'startModel()' when serializing a review in this code:

package com.qype.radar.api.json;

import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONStringer;

import com.qype.radar.model.Review;

public class JsonSerializationHelper {

    private JSONStringer stringer = new JSONStringer();

    ...

    public String serializeReview(Review review) throws JSONException {

        startModel("review");

        value("rating", review.getRating());
        value("language", review.getLanguage());
        value("content", review.getText());

        return endModel();
    }

    ...

    private JSONStringer startModel(String name) throws JSONException {
        stringer.object();
        stringer.key(name);
        stringer.object();
        return stringer;
    }

    private String endModel() throws JSONException {
        stringer.endObject();
        stringer.endObject();
        return stringer.toString();
    }

    private void value(String key, String value) throws JSONException {
        stringer.key(key);
        stringer.value(value);
    }

    private void value(String key, int value) throws JSONException {
        stringer.key(key);
        stringer.value(value);
    }
}

The strangest thing about this is that the code compiles fine, and upon debugging, the JSONStringer object is instantiated ok, but any calls to it throw this error. I also am able to, using Java's reflection, discover that the class does exist, and the methods I can retrieve from the class object are all there, and can be invoked without error.

The org.json package is a standard in Android, and has been available since API version 1.

Any help to resolve this issue would be appreciated, as I simply don't know where to look.

Answer 1

Turns out it was a problem with the Android JAR from Maven Central. It has a dependency on the JSON JARs, but those are broken on Maven Central (the JSONStringer class is empty, only defines a toString() method).

If you're also using Maven, you can fix this by deploying the SDK's android jar using maven-android-sdk-deployer and going from there.

See this thread