Android Studio 4.2 Layout Render Errors

The layout preview has stopped working recently, and I cannot fix it. The things I had recently changed when the issue appeared are:

Updated to 4.2 from 4.1
Changed some directory locations according to the instructions here: https://developer.android.com/studio/intro/studio-config#antivirus-impact
Changed the JDK version to 15

Does anyone have an idea why this is happening and/or how to fix this? Thank you.

This is the stack trace:

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.lambda$createViewFromCustomInflater$0(BridgeInflater.java:259)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.createViewFromCustomInflater(BridgeInflater.java:285)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.onCreateView(BridgeInflater.java:122)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:928)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:948)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:1002)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.createViewFromTag(BridgeInflater.java:309)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:959)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate_Original(LayoutInflater.java:1121)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater_Delegate.rInflate(LayoutInflater_Delegate.java:72)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:1095)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflateChildren(LayoutInflater.java:1082)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate_Original(LayoutInflater.java:1124)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater_Delegate.rInflate(LayoutInflater_Delegate.java:72)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:1095)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflateChildren(LayoutInflater.java:1082)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:680)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:499)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.impl.RenderSessionImpl.inflate(RenderSessionImpl.java:325)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.Bridge.createSession(Bridge.java:369)
    at com.android.tools.idea.layoutlib.LayoutLibrary.createSession(LayoutLibrary.java:141)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.createRenderSession(RenderTask.java:710)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.lambda$inflate$6(RenderTask.java:865)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderExecutor$runAsyncActionWithTimeout$2.run(RenderExecutor.kt:174)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
    at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)
Caused by: java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -1
    at java.base/java.lang.StringLatin1.charAt(StringLatin1.java:47)
    at java.base/java.lang.String.charAt(String.java:693)
    at android.content.res.BridgeTypedArray.getType(BridgeTypedArray.java:1024)
    at android.content.res.BridgeTypedArray.getType(BridgeTypedArray.java:809)
    at android.content.res.BridgeTypedArray.getValue(BridgeTypedArray.java:778)
    at android.content.res.BridgeTypedArray.peekValue(BridgeTypedArray.java:847)
    at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:5951)
    at android.widget.TextView.<init>(TextView.java:996)
    at android.widget.EditText.<init>(EditText.java:87)
    at android.widget.EditText.<init>(EditText.java:83)
    at androidx.appcompat.widget.AppCompatEditText.<init>(AppCompatEditText.java:74)
    at androidx.appcompat.widget.AppCompatEditText.<init>(AppCompatEditText.java:69)
    at androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatViewInflater.createEditText(AppCompatViewInflater.java:209)
    at androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatViewInflater.createView(AppCompatViewInflater.java:127)
    ... 31 more

Solution

Remove following Lines from your XML Layout file This is a work around for functionality broken in Android Studio 4.2

android:autofillHints=""

Update This is also Applicable on Android Studio 4.2.1 and 4.2.2