[0.57.0-rc.4] run-android: Could not find method google()...

[fungilation]

Environment

  React Native Environment Info:
    System:
      OS: Windows 10
      CPU: x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz
      Memory: 3.47 GB / 15.95 GB
    Binaries:
      Yarn: 1.9.4 - C:\Program Files (x86)\Yarn\bin\yarn.CMD
      npm: 6.4.1 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD

Description

> react-native run-android
Starting JS server...
Building and installing the app on the device (cd android && gradlew.bat installDebug)...
Starting a Gradle Daemon (subsequent builds will be faster)

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where:
Build file 'C:\Users\Gary\Documents\code\WonderSwipe\android\build.gradle' line: 13

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred evaluating root project 'wonderswipe'.
> Could not find method google() for arguments [] on repository container of type org.gradle.api.internal.artifacts.dsl.DefaultRepositoryHandler.

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 8.287 secs

Reproducible Demo

Run react-native run-android like above, with this as gradle-wrapper.properties like mine:

distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
distributionPath=wrapper/dists
zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-3.5.1-all.zip

Took me some googling to figure this out. I fixed this with

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-4.10-all.zip

Gradle 4.10 is the current latest.

For RN 0.57 release, should change distributionUrl in android templates so users with old gradle dep like me don't bump into this same issue.

This complements this merged PR in 0.57: #20767

[gengjiawen]

The gradle version in template is 4.4, which should works. Are you creating new project, or upgrade from old project ?

[fungilation]

Upgrade from old (rc0), with my existing gradle-wrapper.properties.

Any "harm" in going with gradle 4.10 as I have, or should I stick with 4.4 myself?

PS. probably 4.4.1, as the latest minor version off 4.4

[gengjiawen]

Both should works fine. But android gradle plugin is using 4.4, that's why we choose that version.

[fungilation]

If there's no simple way to conditionally enforce Gradle being >= 4.4 in gradle-wrapper.properties on upgrade to RN 0.57, should document this requirement as manual upgrade instructions.

[gengjiawen]

Actually you should use react-native-git-upgrade to upgrade react native project. I think there are things already going on for this.
cc @kelset .

[kelset]

should document this requirement as manual upgrade instructions.

could any of you add a comment related to this here, so that we can add an extra step?

I mean, we have already a section mentioning the Android native side updates, but maybe be worth mentioning the specific changes?

[gengjiawen]

I have mentioned there.