python-for-android: TypeError: must be str, not bytes

Versions

• Python: 3.5.3 (running in virtualenv and in root) (seems to be running Python 3.7.1 on Android based on the logs)
• OS: Ubuntu 17:04
• Kivy: 1.9.1
• Cython: 0.28.6
• Andoid 7.0 (on Samsung Galaxy S6)

Description

I have compiled a very basic helloWorld app as below. The app works fine on Ubuntu and also compiles fine into apk using buildozer.

__version__ = '1.0'
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button
 
class Hello(App):
    def build(self):
        btn = Button(text='Hello World')
        return  btn
 
Hello().run()

When I run on Android the app immediately closes before displaying the hello world screen. After working through logs produced with adb logcat I see the following…

06-25 19:48:52.272  2100  2118 I python  :  Traceback (most recent call last):
06-25 19:48:52.272  2100  2118 I python  :    File "/home/lee/KivyProjects/helloWorld/.buildozer/android/app/main.py", line 3, in <module>
06-25 19:48:52.273  2100  2118 I python  :    File "/home/lee/KivyProjects/helloWorld/.buildozer/android/platform/build/build/python-installs/helloWorld/kivy/app.py", line 319, in <module>
06-25 19:48:52.273  2100  2118 I python  :    File "/home/lee/KivyProjects/helloWorld/.buildozer/android/platform/build/build/python-installs/helloWorld/kivy/base.py", line 26, in <module>
06-25 19:48:52.274  2100  2118 I python  :    File "/home/lee/KivyProjects/helloWorld/.buildozer/android/platform/build/build/python-installs/helloWorld/kivy/clock.py", line 410, in <module>
06-25 19:48:52.274  2100  2118 I python  :    File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 983, in _find_and_load
06-25 19:48:52.274  2100  2118 I python  :    File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 967, in _find_and_load_unlocked
06-25 19:48:52.275  2100  2118 I python  :    File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 668, in _load_unlocked
06-25 19:48:52.275  2100  2118 I python  :    File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 638, in _load_backward_compatible
06-25 19:48:52.276  2100  2118 I python  :    File "/home/lee/KivyProjects/helloWorld/.buildozer/android/platform/build/build/other_builds/python3-libffi-openssl-sqlite3/armeabi-v7a__ndk_target_21/python3/Lib/ctypes/util.py", line 73, in <module>
06-25 19:48:52.276  2100  2118 I python  :    File "/home/lee/KivyProjects/helloWorld/.buildozer/android/platform/build/build/python-installs/helloWorld/android/__init__.py", line 8, in <module>
06-25 19:48:52.277  2100  2118 I python  :    File "android/_android.pyx", line 162, in init android._android
06-25 19:48:52.277  2100  2118 I python  :  TypeError: must be str, not bytes
06-25 19:48:52.277  2100  2118 I python  : Python for android ended.

This appears to be the same issue raised as 1691 under the title “unicode error during startup (python3, numpy, opencv) - patch included #1691”. If I am reading this patch correctly the current file _android.pyx should have the following changes

removed this line python_act = autoclass(JAVA_NAMESPACE + u’.PythonActivity’)

added these lines java_namespace = JAVA_NAMESPACE.decode() if isinstance(JAVA_NAMESPACE, bytes) else JAVA_NAMESPACE python_act = autoclass(java_namespace + u’.PythonActivity’)

Yet when I look at the current code on Github for _android.pyx I do not see these changes applied. Has this fix somehow been removed from the current version? How can i apply this fix to my system?