Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SQLite on Android 7+ not working

[tipa]

I was successfully using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SQLite v.1.1.2 in a Xamarin.Android project. But for Android 7+, the app crashes with unauthorized access to "/system/lib64/libsqlite.so" (as reported here).

So I updated to version v2.0.0-preview1-final as this should fix the issue.
However, this results in other problems like the following where the app compiled, but crashed while deploying/starting on the emulator:

...
06-21 09:58:18.970 D/Mono    ( 3632): Assembly Loader probing location: 'System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe'.
06-21 09:58:18.970 F/monodroid-assembly( 3632): Could not load assembly 'System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe' during startup registration.
06-21 09:58:18.970 F/monodroid-assembly( 3632): This might be due to an invalid debug installation.

I then tried to add the 'System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe' NuGet package manually to my project, but it didnt fix the problem. I messed around a lot, trying different build parameters and such and actually got the app running on an Android 7 emulator. However, after a project clean and rebuild, the error showed up again.

Any help on how to get EFCore Sqlite to work on Android 7?

Steps to reproduce

Sample project: https://github.com/tipa/EFCoreSample
(Basically just the basic Android template from VS + the Nuget preview package)

Further technical details

EF Core version: v2.0.0-preview1-final
Database Provider: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite
Xamarin: 4.5.0.486
Xamarin.Android: 7.3.1.2
Operating system: Windows 10
IDE: Visual Studio 2017 15.2

[tipa]

Any comments/updates on this?

[bricelam]

Have you tried again with EF Core version 2.0.0 and Xamarin.Android 7.5?

[tipa]

How can I test it with Xamarin.Android 7.5? Version 7.4 was just released a few days ago

[erikpowa]

@tipa Xamarin Updater Extension for VS 2017 (market). For older version of VS you can switch channels in vs->options->xamarin (not sure if alpha or beta).
I had the same error so I updated everything to the latest version, VS + NET Core (2.0+) + Xamarin Preview (I'm using Xamarin.Android 7.5.0.3 ), and everything is fine since then.

[tipa]

@erikpowa that means I am forced to use VS17 Preview in order to use Xamarin.Android 7.5, is that correct? I would probably even do that if that finally resolves that issue.

Edit: well, downloaded VS17 preview + Xamarin.Android 7.5, however they still seem to be very beta, I encounter several issues which make it impossible for me to even compile the app.

[NPadrutt]

I have the same issue on the current stable and on the preview of Xamarin. But I still have the same issue..

[bricelam]

(Marking for re-triage. Xamarin supports .NET Standard 2.0 now, but this still seems to be blocked.)

[groege]

Hi, this is very serious for us, since we are already shipping the Android app with netstandard1.4.
For now just no one use a Android 7+ phone, but now we might loose many important customers if we can't get it working very soon.
Can you give me any advice on how to handle this? Is there any workaround to make it work on Android 7+?
I'd be grateful for any help. Thanks.

[NPadrutt]

If you target 6.0 with your app and use EF 1.x it should work on Android 7+ as well. There is a message shown sometimes when you start, but you can just hit ok and it should be functional.

[groege]

Thank you! Didn't think there was an easy solution like this (though i also added this: #7870).
For now this is the better solution anyway until we can upload UWP projects to the app store with netcore2.0 ;)