Processing manifest failed android studio - android-studio

Question

I have an issue in android studio where I run the project and it kicks up an error. There isn't really much else I know, but here's the full error:
Android resource linking failed
Output: C:\Users\John\AndroidStudioProjects\MyApplication\app\build\intermediates\instant_run_merged_manifests\debug\processDebugManifest\instant-run\AndroidManifest.xml:44: error: resource string/google_maps_key (aka com.example.john.myapplication:string/google_maps_key) not found.
error: failed processing manifest.
Command: C:\Users\John\.gradle\caches\transforms-1\files-1.1\aapt2-3.2.0-4818971-windows.jar\400d656be4460564aa03c7fb5fa4f8bf\aapt2-3.2.0-4818971-windows\aapt2.exe link -I\
C:\Users\John\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platforms\android-28\android.jar\
-I\
C:\Users\John\AndroidStudioProjects\MyApplication\app\build\intermediates\processed_res\debug\processDebugResources\out\resources-debug.ap_\
--manifest\
C:\Users\John\AndroidStudioProjects\MyApplication\app\build\intermediates\instant_run_merged_manifests\debug\processDebugManifest\instant-run\AndroidManifest.xml\
-o\
C:\Users\John\AndroidStudioProjects\MyApplication\app\build\intermediates\instant_run_main_apk_resources\debug\instantRunMainApkResourcesDebug\out\main_resources\resources_ap\
--auto-add-overlay\
-0\
apk\
--no-version-vectors
Daemon: AAPT2 aapt2-3.2.0-4818971-windows Daemon #0
It occurred here.
Please help!

Answer 1

You probably have something like this in your Android Manifest:
meta-data
android:name="com.google.android.geo.API_KEY"
android:value="#string/google_maps_key"
You need to add that string to your app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml file:
<resources>
<string name="google_maps_key"> COPY THE VALUE FROM GOOGLE CLOUD PLATFORM </string>
</resources>
You can follow this tutorial to get the API key.