Android Studio 3.0 Layout Preview render issues

Question

I just updated my Android Studio to latest 3.0 and then the Layout Preview is not working anymore. I have tried open up different projects and they all have the same render

Answer 1

This is a serious bug in Android Studio 3.0, when using support libraries that are not version 26. As of November 2017, it's not yet fixed and it has been reported several times:

In Stackoverflow:

• Why preview not showing for many layout since update to android studio 3.0?
• Render error in Android Studio 3.0 Layout Editor
• Failed to load AppCompat ActionBar with unknown error in android studio

In Google Issue tracker:

• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/68353097 - Cannot display preview of layout after update to Android Studio 3.0
• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/68498497 - Android Studio 3.0 Preview ScrollView
• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/68423477 - Rendering issue with layout preview after updating to Android Studio 3.0
• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/68288395 - After upgrade android studio as 3.0, layout preview is not showing with error
• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/65858429 - Preview is not working in Android Studio 3.0-Beta6
• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/64028640 - Rendering problem still exists on AS 3.0 canary 8 "Failed to load AppCompat ActionBar with unknown error." and Failed to instantiate one of more classes on android.support:appcompat-v7:26.0.0-beta2
• https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/63786429 - Layout Editor Not Displaying Preview in Android Studio 3.0 Preview 7

Update April 2018: The minimum support library version is 25.4.0, for Android Studio 3.0 and 3.1. More info in the Google Issue Tracker links.