Android: Why does adding minSdkVersion to manifest cause bitmaps to be cropped/masked
<p>I throw myself at your mercy, I have been pulling my hair out with this...</p>

<p>I have developed a simple android game: a thread writes bitmaps onto a Canvas provided by a SurfaceView. In the manifest I HAD NOT included a "uses-sdk" element in the manifest.</p>

<p>The game worked fine on my HTC Desire (2.2 SDK level 8)</p>

<p>When testing on a tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9) the game worked but was rendered with wide black borders to the left/right and bottom: a screen compatability issue.</p>

<p>I searched for information on this and found a page in the Android Developement docs (http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screen-compat-mode.html) that said that adding</p>

<pre><code>&lt;uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8"/&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>to the manifest is the simplest way to fix the "rendering with large black borders on a large screen" issue and yes it worked - the game rendered perfectly on the tablet. Hurrah!</p>

<p>BUT!! When I loaded the game back onto the (2.2 level 8) phone, <em>with the minSdk specified</em>, all of the bitmaps appear to have been cropped to only show the top left corner or masked somehow.</p>

<p>So a bitmap like</p>

<pre><code>12
34
</code></pre>

<p>rendered as</p>

<pre><code>--
-1
</code></pre>

<p>Please advise</p>
