Android Studio - Compose inspection unavailable. Could not determine the version of the androidx.compose.ui:ui artifact. Try a different version of compose

helpinghand
February 23, 2023
507 views
3 votes
4 Answers

I’m getting the error message above when trying to use Layout inspector on my Project when I’m using Android Studio Giraffe | 2022.3.1 Canary 6.

I also tried it with Android Studio Electric Eel | 2022.1.1 Patch 1. There I only get the error message: Compose inspection is not available.

For version Control I’m using chris banes’s BOM

composeOptions {
        kotlinCompilerExtensionVersion '1.4.0'
    }

dependencies{
androidx.compose = 2023.02.00-alpha02
..
implementation platform("dev.chrisbanes.compose:compose-bom:${androidx.compose}")
    androidTestImplementation platform("dev.chrisbanes.compose:compose-bom:${androidx.compose}")
    implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui"
    implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-util"
    implementation "androidx.compose.material:material"
    implementation "androidx.compose.material:material-icons-extended"
    implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-tooling"
    debugImplementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-tooling"
    implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui-tooling-preview"

I also tried to use own verrsions without using the BOM but that gave me the same issue.
Invalidating Cache and Rebuilding Project also didn’t work.

Has anybody an idea how I can fix this and start using my Layout inspector again?

Answers

Chosen as BEST ANSWER
- helpinghand
- February 28, 2023 at 9:29 am
- 0 votes
0
Thanks to CodePoet and VangelNum both of them helped me significantly.

After some trying out with the versions they suggested I found out the following:

I need to use
```
androidx.compose = '2023.02.00-beta02'
```
And change the version of ui:ui to
```
implementation 'androidx.compose.ui:ui:1.4.0-beta02'
//keep in mind: "" is not the same as ''
```
Here you need to be careful as I tried several times with "..." and it didn't work. You need to use '...' that it takes the written version.

Like this it works for me.

Update: just using
```
androidx.compose = '2023.02.00-beta03'
```
Also does the trick.

(Edit)

- CodePoet
- February 23, 2023 at 1:04 pm
- 0 votes
0
You may want to try updating to the latest version to see if that helps:
```
api(platform("dev.chrisbanes.compose:compose-bom:2023.02.00-beta02"))
```
The current kotlinCompilerExtensionVersion is 1.4.2.
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- VangelNum
- February 28, 2023 at 2:23 am
- 0 votes
0
I changed the line implementation "androidx.compose.ui:ui" to implementation ‘androidx.compose.ui:ui:1.4.0-beta02’ and it works

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- Edric
- March 2, 2023 at 5:04 pm
- 0 votes
0
Fix

As mentioned previously, the fix is to bump compose-ui to 1.4.0-beta02:
```
implementation("androidx.compose.ui:ui:1.4.0-beta02")
```
(or via Version Catalogs🙂
```
name-of-library = "androidx.compose.ui:ui:1.4.0-beta02"
# Or
name-of-library = { module = "androidx.compose.ui:ui", version = "1.4.0-beta02" }
```
Or to use 2023.02.00-beta03 of the alpha Compose BoM:
```
implementation(platform("dev.chrisbanes.compose:compose-bom:2023.02.00-beta03"))
```
(or via Version Catalogs🙂
```
name-of-bom = "dev.chrisbanes.compose:compose-bom:2023.02.00-beta03"
# Or
name-of-bom = { module = "dev.chrisbanes.compose:compose-bom", version = "2023.02.00-beta03" }
```
Rationale

This is because the androidx.compose.ui_ui.version file (in the META-INF directory of a built APK) that the Layout Inspector expects has an invalid version:
```
task ':compose:ui:ui:writeVersionFile' property 'version'
```
(Curiously enough, this also happens for some other dependency versions:)

(androidx.browser_browser.version)
```
task ':browser:browser:writeVersionFile' property 'version'
```
Some quick googling in Google’s IssueTracker led to an issue, which documents the bug affecting versions 1.4.0-alpha05, 1.4.0-alpha06 and 1.4.0-beta01.

A fix was then submitted to resolve the version issue, and has since been applied to 1.4.0-beta02 (released on 22 Feb).

Additional info

This bug appears to have been caused by a prior change to convert the properties in the VersionFileWriterTask file (used to write the version file) to use Gradle’s lazily configured properties:
```
@get:Input
lateinit var version: String // Before
abstract val version: Property<String> // After (note the use of Property)
```
However, as version is now wrapped around Gradle’s Property interface, it will then require additional code to retrieve its value, in this case with a simple get() call (as shown in the most recent commit):
```
writer.println(version) // Before
writer.println(version.get()) // After
```
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