Manifest merger failed android studio - android-studio

Question

I have this in my build.gradle(module:app) :
dependencies {
implementation fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
implementation 'com.android.support:appcompat:28.0.0'
implementation 'com.android.support:design:28.0.0'
implementation 'com.android.support.constraint:constraint-
layout:1.1.3'
implementation 'com.theartofdev.edmodo:android-image-cropper:2.8.+'
implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-auth:16.0.5'
implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-database:16.0.4'
testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.12'
androidTestImplementation 'com.android.support.test:runner:1.0.2'
androidTestImplementation 'com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-
core:3.0.2'
implementation 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:28.0.0'
implementation 'com.android.support:gridlayout-v7:28.0.0'
}
and when I try to sync it displays this:
ERROR: Manifest merger failed : Attribute application#appComponentFactory
value=(android.support.v4.app.CoreComponentFactory) from
[com.android.support:support-compat:28.0.0] AndroidManifest.xml:22:18-91
is also present at [androidx.core:core:1.0.0]
AndroidManifest.xml:22:18-86 value=
(androidx.core.app.CoreComponentFactory).
Suggestion: add 'tools:replace="android:appComponentFactory"' to
<application> element at AndroidManifest.xml:9:5-32:19 to override.
what can cause this and how do I fix it?
(adding tools:replace="android:appComponentFactory" to the manifest doesn't work)

Answer 1

Your android-image-cropper library is using androidx, while you haven't migrated yet. It is highly recommended to migrate to using Androidx, since most of the libraries are doing the same and may not provide backward compatibility to the com.android.support variants.
If you cannot migrate in the short term, then you can revert to a lower version of the library. As per the changelog, they migrated to AndroidX in 2.8.0, so you should go back to 2.7.0.