ZXing Could not load Type in Xamarin Forms for iOS

im getting an Error in my Xamarin Forms Application. This error only occurs on Android. iOS Works fine.

This is the line where the Exception is thrown.

ZXing.Net.Mobile.Forms.Android.Platform.Init();

This is the Exception

Could not load typeZXing.Net.Mobile.Forms.Android.ZXingScannerViewRenderer'
from assembly 'ZXing.Net.Mobile.Forms.Android, Version=2.1.47.0,
Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.

StackTrance:

at ZXing.Net.Mobile.Forms.Android.Platform.Init () [0x00000] in <30849edafd8e4fbb9f24af588a9bebb0>:0 
at AllergyDetector.Droid.MainActivity.OnCreate (Android.OS.Bundle bundle) [0x0002d] in /Users/alexanderrummel/Development/Projects/dotNet/AllergyDetector/Droid/MainActivity.cs:28 
at Android.Support.V4.App.FragmentActivity.n_OnCreate_Landroid_os_Bundle_ (System.IntPtr jnienv, System.IntPtr native__this, System.IntPtr native_savedInstanceState) [0x00011] in <27c17fe440cf491ba8255bcefade6e02>:0 
at (wrapper dynamic-method) System.Object:ceddf78a-cf9a-4fee-97a9-ea86e17b2375 (intptr,intptr,intptr)

I use the following Versions

XamarinForms: 2.3.3.152-pre2
ZXing.Net.Mobile 2.1.47
ZXing.Net.Mobile.Forms 2.1.47

TargetFramework Android 5.0
MinimalAndroid Version Android 5.0

Solution

After a quick Google action it seems that this is a known issue with the Xamarin.Forms 2.3.3.152-pre2 release. Have a look at the GitHub page here although it also seems to happen with other version of Xamarin.Forms.

There also is a fix suggested by richardpike:

I was able to fix this for myself by downloading the source code and updating the xamarin forms package to the pre-release (2.3.3.152-pre2)

This required 2 new override functions in ZXingScannerViewRenderer.cs, and ZXingBarcodeImageViewRenderer.cs (from the ZXing.Net.Mobile.Forms.Android project). All I did was make them return null.

This builds successfully and I was able to use the resulting dll in my project without it crashing.

I would make a pull request, but I've never done one before using github...

If that is not something you're comfortable with I'm afraid you are stuck with waiting until they have fixed this.