Crash in Marketing Cloud Mobile Push Android SDK v5.2.x When Targeting Android O (Oreo)

Question

We are getting the following crash when targeting Android O (Oreo) when using the Marketing Cloud Mobile Push Android SDK v5.2.x and initializing with:

  MarketingCloudSdk.init(this, MarketingCloudConfig.builder()
      .setApplicationId("OUR ID")
      .setAccessToken("OUR TOKEN")
      .setGcmSenderId("OUR GCM SENDER ID")
      .setAnalyticsEnabled(true)
      .build(), new MarketingCloudSdk.InitializationListener() {
    @Override public void complete(InitializationStatus status) {
      //no-op
    }
  });

We get the following error:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: A channel name must be provided when target SDK version is at least Android O.
                                         at com.salesforce.marketingcloud.notifications.NotificationManager.a(Unknown Source:19)
                                         at com.salesforce.marketingcloud.notifications.NotificationManager.a(Unknown Source:4)
                                         at com.salesforce.marketingcloud.MarketingCloudSdk.f(Unknown Source:309)
                                         at com.salesforce.marketingcloud.MarketingCloudSdk.b(Unknown Source:43)
                                         at com.salesforce.marketingcloud.MarketingCloudSdk.a(Unknown Source:0)
                                         at com.salesforce.marketingcloud.MarketingCloudSdk$1.run(Unknown Source:38)
                                         at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:764)

Answer 1

When targeting Android O (or higher) you must choose between one of two options for dealing with notification channels while initializing the SDK.

Option 1: Use the default channel configuration provided by the SDK by simply providing the user facing channel name for that channel.

Option 2: Provide an implementation of the NotificationChannelIdProvider which will allow you to choose which of the notification channel you've set up should be used on a per message basis.

If neither option is selected during the SDK initialization then the IllegalStateException you reported will be thrown. This is because without make a choice the SDK will not be able to show notifications on Android O devices.

See http://salesforce-marketingcloud.github.io/JB4A-SDK-Android/notifications/custom-channels.html for more information