Android - Inner element must either be a resource reference or empty

Question

Error Details

AGPBI: {"kind":"error","text":"error: \u003citem\u003e inner element must either be a resource reference or empty.","sources":[{"file":"...\\app\\src\\main\\res\\values\\ids.xml","position":{"startLine":2,"startColumn":4,"startOffset":57,"endColumn":61,"endOffset":114}}],"original":"","tool":"AAPT"}
:app:mergeDebugResources
Error: java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: com.android.builder.internal.aapt.v2.Aapt2Exception: AAPT2 error: check logs for details
:app:mergeDebugResources FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:mergeDebugResources'.
> Error: java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: com.android.builder.internal.aapt.v2.Aapt2Exception: AAPT2 error: check logs for details.

Resource File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <item name="tv_deviceName" type="id">tv_deviceName</item>
</resources>

Build Environment

Android Studio 3.1.4
minSdkVersion = 21
targetSdkVersion = 28
compileSdkVersion = 28
buildToolsVersion = "28.0.2"

Same here in my case then i delete code from ids.xml file .enter image description here — SANCHIT TANWAR
– SANCHIT TANWAR, Commented Jun 29, 2019 at 18:48
my code looks like this - <item name="textinput_suffix_text" type="id"/> AndI'm having the same error. — Pooja Singh
– Pooja Singh, Commented Aug 23, 2022 at 7:01

Sangeet Suresh · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-22 18:41:10Z

103

When declaring id in resources, the body should be empty

<item
    type="id"
    name="id_name" />

For more info please have a look on below link

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/more-resources#Id

So as Oliver Manyasa mentioned, it should be as below

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <item name="tv_deviceName" type="id"/>
</resources>

edited Jan 22, 2019 at 18:41

answered Aug 29, 2018 at 12:30

Sangeet Suresh

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2 Comments

yuchangfu Over a year ago

I know this,bug if xml file in a aar file,how to fix this problem

Saurabh Over a year ago

@yuchangfu you can override the resource in your file to fix this problem.

dna · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-22 04:42:48Z

22

I had a similar issue after upgrading to Android Studio 3.2.1

The error was pointing to this item in ids.xml file

<item name="mnuActivate" type="id">Activation</item>

As mentioned by the user Sangeet Suresh, I changed it to

<item name="mnuActivate" type="id" />

That fixed the issue.

answered Oct 22, 2018 at 4:42

dna

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2 Comments

Jesus Almaral - Hackaprende Over a year ago

How did you edit the file? It´s regenerated automatically

Mr. Disability Over a year ago

Very confusing, android studio created this automatically.

Nikita R. · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-25 18:30:24Z

11

To all others who are still scratching their head to get the solution for this is create ids.xml inside src/main/res/values with contents similar to the following (but make sure to update it with the ids you're seeing errors for):

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<items>
    <item name="animator" type="id"/>
    <item name="date_picker_day" type="id"/>
    <string name="deleted_key"/>
</items>

Now Android Studio will be giving you an error for explicit values and if those values are coming from some library you are using then you can't make a change in the intermediate file so instead change here and while merging your code Android studio takes care of it.

edited Apr 25, 2019 at 18:30

Nikita R.

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answered Nov 16, 2018 at 6:29

Sangam Pandey

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2 Comments

Kirill Karmazin Over a year ago

Great solution! Just override these values, items, strings etc. in your own resources!

user3284707 Over a year ago

Can you elaborate your answer a little giving an example ids.xml file? I tried what you suggested but the same items are coming up in the errors after a rebuild?

Oliver Manyasa · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-02 10:12:14Z

6

On your Resource File remove the closing tag plus the Body i.e Remove "tv_deviceName"

and let your resource file be like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <item name="tv_deviceName" type="id"/>
</resources>

answered Oct 2, 2018 at 10:12

Oliver Manyasa

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1 Comment

Christian Prince Over a year ago

Oliver Manyasa, would you share your email address or send an email to [email protected] asap

Gurjinder Singh · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-10 06:08:37Z

3

I had below error

error: <item> inner element must either be a resource reference or empty.

In my case I created new test project and deleted the toolbar and fab from activity_main.xml file but these were also in ids.xml file. After deleting both ids from ids.xml file I was able to run. In your ids.xml file you may have lots of ID's but as I created a new project So, It has No IDs.

In above screenshot you can see the exact file location.

edited May 10, 2019 at 6:08

answered May 9, 2019 at 18:44

Gurjinder Singh

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2 Comments

Mable John Over a year ago

And finally my project doesn't have a single line of code.

Gurjinder Singh Over a year ago

@young Exactly.

Tomas Kasnauskas · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-31 08:06:35Z

For me this was actually failing because the new gradle versions. I am pretty sure that some plugins I'm using have incompatibilities with newest gradle. I ended up with success build having the following versions:

gradle-wrapper.properties file:

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-4.10.1-all.zip

build.gradle file

 dependencies {
   classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.0.1'
 }

EDIT:

As we want to use 3.2.+ versions now, that isn't a reliable solution.

What I ended up doing is creating a new ids.xml file, and overriding all the values that have been conflicting.

ids.xml file example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <resources>
        <item name="cc_card" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_ccv" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_entry" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_entry_internal" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_exp" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_form_layout" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_four_digits" type="id"/>
        <item name="cc_zip" type="id"/>
        <item name="text_helper" type="id"/>
    </resources>

Neil Hoff · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-24 16:52:49Z

2

I simply created this auto-generated file in res/xml/values with empty tags like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    ...
    <item type="id" name="icon" />
    ...
</resources>

That did the trick!

edited Feb 24, 2020 at 16:52

Neil Hoff

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answered Feb 24, 2020 at 15:06

Patrick Steil

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Comments

Lance Samaria · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-08 07:49:15Z

1

In the the values folder I double clicked the ids.xml file this was causing the issue

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <item name="roll_button" type="id">rollButton</item>
</resources>

I tried the some of the voted answers:

<item name="roll_button" type="id">

But I got an error that said:

The element type "item" must be terminated by the matching end-tag "</item>".

So to fix I just added the matching ending tag:

<item name="roll_button" type="id"></item>

UPDATE

I'm new to Kotlin so what I just noticed and what I didn't realize is the <item name="roll_button" type="id" /> needs the forward slash at the end to go before the closing >. If you don't include it then you will get the error I got but if you do include it the accepted answer works.

edited May 8, 2020 at 7:49

answered Nov 9, 2019 at 14:14

Lance Samaria

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