Enable LogCat on Release Build in Android Studio
AndroidLogcatAndroid Problem Overview
By default, when I change Build Variants
to release
I don't get any Logs on the logcat, but I do need to read release logs of my app, how can I enable this?
Android Solutions
Solution 1 - Android
Add android:debuggable="true"
(default is false) to your Manifest inside the <application>
tag.
> android:debuggable
Whether or not the application can be debugged,
> even when running on a device in user mode — "true" if it can be, and
> "false" if not.
> You can disable debugging by removing the android:debuggable attribute
> from the
Edit
You may need to add the following to your build.gradle
file inside the android{...} tag:
lintOptions {
checkReleaseBuilds false
}
And as a side-note: Right on the device the Logs are always written, no matter if your application's debuggable is set to false or true. But via the LogCat in Android Studio it's only possible if debuggable is set to true. (Just tested this)
Solution 2 - Android
You should add
android {
buildTypes {
release {
debuggable true
In this case you can use Log.
or System.out.println
and see logs.
If you cannot run release version (app
is disabled), and error is shown: "apk is not signed. Please configure the signing information for the selected flavor using the Project Structure dialog", see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25001479/app-release-unsigned-apk-is-not-signed.
Solution 3 - Android
I do not like the other solution because then you are not testing how the App really is deployed.
A better solution is to open the Android Device Monitor where you can see the logs even when in release configuration with debuggable=false
.
Find it here:
> Tools -> Android -> Android Device Monitor
Update:
Android Device Monitor was removed in Android Studio 3.2. However, it is still present in SDK, and you can use it to see the logs (it is located in $ANDROID_SDK/tools/
)
Solution 4 - Android
debuggable true
in build.gradle
works well, except that BuildConfig.DEBUG
is also going to be true. This might be a problem if your app relies on BuildConfig.DEBUG
to do something only when it's a debug build.
In such a case, try Log.wtf(BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID, "something went wrong")
, which will print to logcat even if it's a release build.
Solution 5 - Android
This approach will obviously help you to get logs while testing the production build. But be careful while uploading your app to Google Play Store, Toggle debuggable
to false
before uploading to production.
buildTypes {
debug {
manifestPlaceholders = [crashlyticsCollectionEnabled: "false"]
}
release {
manifestPlaceholders = [crashlyticsCollectionEnabled: "false"]
lintOptions {
checkReleaseBuilds false
abortOnError false
}
shrinkResources true
minifyEnabled true
debuggable true
signingConfig signingConfigs.productionrelease
proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android-optimize.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
}
}
set crashlyticsCollectionEnabled
to false
to avoid your crashes to report to Google Play-Store while debugging.