NullPointerException: Attempt to read from field 'int android.view.View.mViewFlags'

Question

My app was working fine, and I then included the support design library in the build.gradle

compile 'com.android.support:design:23.2.1'

Android Studio prompted to download more components and after that I started seeing way too many of these crashes when navigation b/w different fragments

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.presdo.match.matchtemplate, PID: 23339
java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to read from field 'int android.view.View.mViewFlags' on a null object reference
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchDraw(ViewGroup.java:3197)
    at android.view.View.draw(View.java:15234)
    at android.widget.FrameLayout.draw(FrameLayout.java:598)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14167)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.recreateChildDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3389)
    at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchGetDisplayList(ViewGroup.java:3368)
    at android.view.View.updateDisplayListIfDirty(View.java:14127)
    at android.view.View.getDisplayList(View.java:14189)
    at android.view.ThreadedRenderer.updateViewTreeDisplayList(ThreadedRenderer.java:273)
    at android.view.ThreadedRenderer.updateRootDisplayList(ThreadedRenderer.java:279)
    at android.view.ThreadedRenderer.draw(ThreadedRenderer.java:318)
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl.draw(ViewRootImpl.java:2530)
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performDraw(ViewRootImpl.java:2352)
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performTraversals(ViewRootImpl.java:1982)
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl.doTraversal(ViewRootImpl.java:1061)
    at android.view.ViewRootImpl$TraversalRunnable.run(ViewRootImpl.java:5885)
    at android.view.Choreographer$CallbackRecord.run(Choreographer.java:767)
    at android.view.Choreographer.doCallbacks(Choreographer.java:580)
    at android.view.Choreographer.doFrame(Choreographer.java:550)
    at android.view.Choreographer$FrameDisplayEventReceiver.run(Choreographer.java:753)
    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:135)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5254)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:903)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:698)

This is my build.gradle

compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.2.1'
compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:+'
compile 'com.android.support:cardview-v7:23.+'
compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.0.0'
compile 'com.android.support:percent:23.1.1'
compile 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.0'
compile 'com.android.support:palette-v7:23.1.0'

I have already looked at this and I am not yet sure if it has something to do with my code.

Now, even if I remove the google design support library, I see the crashes, and not able to predict when they happen, since there is no reference to my project's code base in the stacktrace.

Any help is appreciated.

UPDATE

I made changes to the Gradle to make the support library versions consistent, and I don't see the crashes anymore. Here is a snippet

ext {
    supportLibVersion = '23.2.1'
}

dependencies {
    compile "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:cardview-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:support-v4:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:percent:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:palette-v7:${supportLibVersion}"
    compile "com.android.support:design:${supportLibVersion}"
    ...
}

Answer 1

It's generally not a good idea to mix versions from different support libraries, since they have interdependencies that may not work across versions.

I'd try updating them all to 23.2.1, rather than mixing 23.0, 23.1 & 23.2