Cannot create an instance of class ViewModel

Question

I am trying to write a sample app using Android architecture components and but even after trying for days I could not get it to work. It gives me the above exception.

Answer 1

I got this after migrating to AndroidX.

There's a bug in androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel:2.0.0-beta01 where Proguard removes the constructor.

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112230489

Fix by upgrading to 2.0.0, and remember to update your proguard rules if needed.

My error message looked like this:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Cannot create an instance of class my.custom.viewmodel.CustomViewModel
at androidx.lifecycle.ViewModelProvider$AndroidViewModelFactory.create(ViewModelProvider.java:202)
at androidx.lifecycle.ViewModelProvider.get(ViewModelProvider.java:135)
at androidx.lifecycle.ViewModelProvider.get(ViewModelProvider.java:103)
......
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodException:  [class android.app.Application]
at java.lang.Class.getConstructor0(Class.java:2204)
at java.lang.Class.getConstructor(Class.java:1683)
at androidx.lifecycle.ViewModelProvider$AndroidViewModelFactory.create(ViewModelProvider.java:200)
... 34 more


  androidx.test.espresso.PerformException: Error performing 'single click - At Coordinates: 539, 1167 and precision: 16, 16' on view 'with id: my.test:id/button_return_to_main_menu'.
at androidx.test.espresso.PerformException$Builder.build(PerformException.java:82)
at androidx.test.espresso.base.DefaultFailureHandler.getUserFriendlyError(DefaultFailureHandler.java:79)
.....
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{my.custom.domain.MainActivity}: java.lang.RuntimeException: Cannot create an instance of class my.custom.viewmodel.CustomViewModel
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2646)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2707)