Android DeadSystemException

Currently, we are experiencing a DeadSystemException in our HockeyApp crash reporting. It occurs on Android 7.0 and Android 7.1. We don't experience this exception in the previous version of our application (they are currently both used by users), so I guess this exception is caused by some code change. But stack trace is not very helpful for this. Any idea? Thanks for any suggestions.

Stack trace from HockeyApp:

java.lang.RuntimeException: android.os.DeadSystemException
at android.app.ActivityThread$StopInfo.run(ActivityThread.java:3781)
at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:751)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6119)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:886)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:776)
Caused by: android.os.DeadSystemException
... 8 more

The Android Developer docs for android.os.DeadSystemException says the following:

The core Android system has died and is going through a runtime restart. All running apps will be promptly killed.

The source code does not help much more:

package android.os;
/**
 * The core Android system has died and is going through a runtime restart. All
 * running apps will be promptly killed.
 */
public class DeadSystemException extends DeadObjectException {
    public DeadSystemException() {
        super();
    }
}

Overall, it looks like this is being thrown by the OS and has nothing to do with our code.

Looking at the javadoc from the superclass, DeadObjectException, backs this theory up:

The object you are calling has died, because its hosting process no longer exists.

One cause was a bug in the notification service of Android version 7 and 8.

It was caused by using "vibration pattern" in the notifications, which throws an ArrayOutOfBoundsException. This leads the whole system to crash and post a DeadSystemException.

For further details you can refer to this Medium article here.