MAUI / Xamarin build failing with "Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Tooling.targets(20,5): error XA0031: Java SDK 11.0 or above is required when using .NET 6"

Question

We have an existing Azure DevOps build pipeline for a .NET Core 7 MAUI Android app that was working fine until today, 20th November 2023. We have noticed that the previous successful build was using MSBuild version 17.7.3. Today it's using 17.8.3 that I assume means it is on a server with the new VS image on it.

MSBuild version 17.8.3+195e7f5a3 for .NET
Build FAILED.
C:\Program Files\dotnet\packs\Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Windows\33.0.95\targets\Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Tooling.targets(20,5): error XA0031: Java SDK 11.0 or above is required when using .NET 6 or higher. Download the latest JDK at: https://aka.ms/msopenjdk`

Looks like this is a breaking change for Xamarin / MAUI builds in Visual Studio 2022 17.8.3, if you are building for NET 7 without explicitly saying so in a global.json file (the dotnet build step is explicitly stating framework -f net7.0-android).

Necessity

Having the same problem. Wonder if Microsoft will fix this... isn't version 11 old? (21 latest?) – Discommon

Yeah think so. However it seems because we never specified the Java SDK version before , it was previously using version 8 that is the default for MSBuild 17.7.3 . – Necessity

Coincidentally I had that happen too today and it doesn't actually have to do with Java, but rather I was trying to build a project that was targeting .NET 7 with the .NET 8 SDK. Double check that your build is using the correct .NET SDK and you project is targeting the right version and that those are aligned. – Krawczyk

To add to my previous comment. I think what might have happened is that the hosted build agents now have .NET 8 installed by default and you're trying to build your .NET 7 project against it. Either add a step to use .NET 7 (or a global.json) or update your project to .NET 8 and I think it should be fixed without having to set the Java version explicitly. – Krawczyk

Answer 1

Classic DevOps Build Step

Fixed it by adding a Java Tool Installer step before the dotnet build step, to use Java 11 explicitly. Only using Java 11 because this is the minimum requirement - you could try using latest Java if you like - v17 at this point in time.

Settings:

YAML Syntax

Just adding @Kuepper's answer for YAML build steps. Please give his answer the vote if it helped you.

  - task: JavaToolInstaller@0
    displayName: 'Use Java 17'
    inputs:
      versionSpec: 17
      jdkArchitectureOption: x64
      jdkSourceOption: PreInstalled

Necessity

would you mind adding the yaml syntax into your answer? I posted it as a separate answer now to preserve the formatting. – Mellicent

Answer 2

Github Actions

I had the same problem on github actions.

Just adding this action before publishing fixed for me:

- name: Setup Java JDK
  uses: actions/[email protected]
  with:
    distribution: 'microsoft'
    java-version: '17'

Zambia

Answer 3

That's the yaml for Azure DevOps (James Cormack's screenshot used version 11 instead of 17)

  - task: JavaToolInstaller@0
    displayName: 'Use Java 17'
    inputs:
      versionSpec: 17
      jdkArchitectureOption: x64
      jdkSourceOption: PreInstalled

Mellicent