I’ve managed get it to work through a bit of an unconventional method.
My project was a launcher project until 4.17, then it became a visual studio project 4.18, and then got converted to 4.20.3 back to the launcher version. That’s when i got the 'performing final apk package operation error : “Can’t make APK without compiled .so”
- Created an identical copy of the Unreal Project folder
- Used this copy to Generate Visual Studio Project Files (right click your yourproject.ueproject)(don’t forget to delete the intermediate folder before)
- Then I started up Microsoft Visual Studio
- With ‘Development’ Solution Configuration and ‘Android’ Solution platform , I build the project.
- This in turn generated the Binary/Android files, in the project folder. The files it creates are yourproject.target , yourproject-armv7-es2.apk, yourproject-armv7-es2.so
- I then copied them over to the original project folder. Create the Binary/Android folder if there is not one.
- Building worked fine and the error was gone and it would deploy and launch on android.
This probably is not the best approach. But it is a workaround solution. If anyone knows a better way to get rid of the .so error without sorting to visual studio, please feel free to post.
The renaming of the .so file ‘solution’ , from @maxbrown seems to work for building the project, for me, but once it is deployed, my app it launches and close in rapid succession.
Another idea I thought of was migrating the level to an empty 4.20 project.
Create an empty 4.20 project
Open your project and migrate your assets to the new empty 4.20 project.
This method however needs additional post-work to get it in into a functional gameplay state in which it used to be before.