Default FirebaseApp is not initialized

Question

We're seeing a few exceptions with the message Default FirebaseApp is not initialized in this process com.example.app. Make sure to call FirebaseApp.initializeApp(Context) first. in our Android app in which we just added Firebase Remote Config.

The stack trace is as follows:

Fatal Exception: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Default FirebaseApp is not initialized in this process com.example.app. Make sure to call FirebaseApp.initializeApp(Context) first.
       at com.google.firebase.FirebaseApp.getInstance(Unknown Source)
       at com.google.firebase.remoteconfig.FirebaseRemoteConfig.getInstance(Unknown Source)
       at com.example.app.fragments.SomeFragment.updateFooter(SourceFile:295)
       at com.example.app.fragments.SomeFragment.onCreateView(SourceFile:205)
       at android.support.v4.app.Fragment.performCreateView(SourceFile:2080)
       at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(SourceFile:1108)
       at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.moveToState(SourceFile:1290)
       at android.support.v4.app.BackStackRecord.run(SourceFile:801)
       at android.support.v4.app.FragmentManagerImpl.execSingleAction(SourceFile:1638)
       at android.support.v4.app.BackStackRecord.commitNowAllowingStateLoss(SourceFile:679)
       at android.support.v4.app.FragmentPagerAdapter.finishUpdate(SourceFile:143)
       at android.support.v4.view.ViewPager.populate(SourceFile:1240)
       at android.support.v4.view.ViewPager.populate(SourceFile:1088)
       at android.support.v4.view.ViewPager.setAdapter(SourceFile:542)
       at com.example.app.SomeActivity.onSomeAsyncCallback(SourceFile:908)
       at com.example.app.SomeDataRetriever.onAsyncHttpCompleted(SourceFile:72)
       at com.example.app.io.AsyncHttp.onPostExecute(SourceFile:141)
       at com.example.app.io.AsyncHttp.onPostExecute(SourceFile:19)
       at android.os.AsyncTask.finish(AsyncTask.java:679)
       at android.os.AsyncTask.access$500(AsyncTask.java:180)
       at android.os.AsyncTask$InternalHandler.handleMessage(AsyncTask.java:696)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:150)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5665)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:799)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:689)

This is version 9.6.1 and we're also using other Firebase components:

compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-ads:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-config:9.6.1'
compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-invites:9.6.1'
compile "com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:9.6.1"

As I can see from the documentation and the Javadoc we shouldn't have to do any manual initialization in our case.

The exception happens on Android 4-6 on a variety of devices.

Edit:

I see this question gets a little bit of attention. I think this explanation can be interesting for some of you: https://firebase.googleblog.com/2016/12/how-does-firebase-initialize-on-android.html

Answer 1

I had this same issue some time ago.

You're trying to get an instance of Firebase without initialize it. Please add this line of code before you try to get an instance of Firebase, in your main function or a FutureBuilder:

FirebaseApp.initializeApp();