More than one file was found with OS independent path 'META-INF/LICENSE'

When I build my app, I get the following error:

Error: Execution failed for task ':app:transformResourcesWithMergeJavaResForDebug'. More than one file was found with OS independent path 'META-INF/LICENSE'

This is my build.gradle file:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
apply plugin: 'kotlin-android'
android {
    compileSdkVersion 25
    buildToolsVersion "25.0.2"
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "cn.sz.cyrus.kotlintest"
        minSdkVersion 14
        targetSdkVersion 25
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"

        javaCompileOptions{
            annotationProcessorOptions{
                includeCompileClasspath = true
            }
        }
        multiDexEnabled true
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
    packagingOptions {
 /*       exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE.txt'*/
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')
    androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:2.2.2', {
        exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'support-annotations'
    })
    compile "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jre7:$kotlin_version"
    compile "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-reflect:$kotlin_version"
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:25.3.1'
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:25.3.1'
    compile 'com.android.support.constraint:constraint-layout:1.0.2'
    debugCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android:1.5.1'
    releaseCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android-no-op:1.5.1'
    testCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android-no-op:1.5.1'
    compile 'com.github.GrenderG:Toasty:1.2.5'
    compile 'com.orhanobut:logger:1.15'

    compile 'io.reactivex.rxjava2:rxandroid:2.0.1'
    compile 'com.umeng.analytics:analytics:latest.integration'
    compile 'ai.api:libai:1.4.8'
    compile 'ai.api:sdk:2.0.5@aar'
// api.ai SDK dependencies
    compile 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.0'
    compile 'commons-io:commons-io:2.4'
    compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.1'
}

When I add this code to my build.gradle file,

  packagingOptions {
            exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
            exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
            exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
            exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
            exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE.txt'
        }

This error would be solved, but another problem will happen. Like this:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com.squareup.leakcanary.internal.HeapAnalyzerService
at com.squareup.leakcanary.LeakCanary.isInAnalyzerProcess(LeakCanary.java:145)
at cn.sz.cyrus.wemz.TestApplication.onCreate(TestApplication.kt:32)

Who has ideas how to solve this?

You can add this in yourProject/app/build.gradle inside android{}. The exclude function adds the named resource to the list of resources that are not packaged in the APK.

android {      
      packagingOptions {
        exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/license.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/notice.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/ASL2.0'
        exclude("META-INF/*.kotlin_module") 
      }          
}

The exclude function is deprecated in 7.0.2 and you should use something similar to this:

android {
   ...
   packagingOptions {
       resources.excludes.add("META-INF/*")
   }
}

In my case it was enough to exclude only path 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES' on yourProject/app/build.gradle inside android{} . Here it is

packagingOptions {
    exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
}

And then do Clean Project and Rebuild Project.

The solutions here didn't help me, but this link did.

If you have a library that's adding some android .so files –like libassmidi.so or libgnustl_shared.so– you have to tell gradle to pick just one when packaging, otherwise you'll get the conflict.

android {
  packagingOptions {
    pickFirst 'lib/armeabi-v7a/libassmidi.so'
    pickFirst 'lib/x86/libassmidi.so'
  }
}

I was having this issue when using a React Native app as a library in an Android project. Hope it helps

Basically when gradle puts together the apk file, it copies content from all the compile dependencies, It is intelligent enough to see that there is a duplicate file..coming from two different jar files. This could be any file like a.txt or META-INF/DEPENDENCIES. It might be best to exclude these files using the below, in case the file is present there only for informational purposes.

android{
    packagingOptions {
       exclude 'META-INF/DEPENDENCIES'
    }
}

Or if in case, the file is a mandatory file like a class file, that has been duplicated across two jar dependencies that are related to each other, it is best to find alternatives to these jars, in the way of a more compatible version.