Android Studio 2.3.3 and Support Library 26.0.0 :: Rendering AppCompatTextView in Previewer

We recently updated our Android Studio site to version 2.3.3 and we unexpectedly run into the following error in the xml viewer whenever we try to view the layout.

The following classes could not be instantiated:
- android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at android.content.res.Resources_Delegate.getValue(Resources_Delegate.java:788)
    at android.content.res.Resources.getValue(Resources.java:1286)
    at android.support.v4.content.res.ResourcesCompat.loadFont(ResourcesCompat.java:212)
    at android.support.v4.content.res.ResourcesCompat.getFont(ResourcesCompat.java:206)
    at android.support.v7.widget.TintTypedArray.getFont(TintTypedArray.java:119)
    at android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextHelper.updateTypefaceAndStyle(AppCompatTextHelper.java:208)
    at android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextHelper.loadFromAttributes(AppCompatTextHelper.java:152)
    at android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextHelperV17.loadFromAttributes(AppCompatTextHelperV17.java:38)
    at android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView.<init>(AppCompatTextView.java:81)
    at android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView.<init>(AppCompatTextView.java:71)
    at sun.reflect.GeneratedConstructorAccessor153.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
    at org.jetbrains.android.uipreview.ViewLoader.createNewInstance(ViewLoader.java:475)
    at org.jetbrains.android.uipreview.ViewLoader.loadClass(ViewLoader.java:250)
    at org.jetbrains.android.uipreview.ViewLoader.loadClass(ViewLoader.java:213)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.LayoutlibCallbackImpl.loadClass(LayoutlibCallbackImpl.java:193)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.loadCustomView(BridgeInflater.java:333)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.onCreateView(BridgeInflater.java:152)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.onCreateView(LayoutInflater.java:717)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:785)
    at android.view.BridgeInflater.createViewFromTag(BridgeInflater.java:222)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:727)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate_Original(LayoutInflater.java:858)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater_Delegate.rInflate(LayoutInflater_Delegate.java:70)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:834)
    at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:492)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.bars.CustomBar.<init>(CustomBar.java:95)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.bars.StatusBar.<init>(StatusBar.java:67)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.impl.Layout.createStatusBar(Layout.java:224)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.impl.Layout.<init>(Layout.java:146)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.impl.RenderSessionImpl.inflate(RenderSessionImpl.java:301)
    at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.Bridge.createSession(Bridge.java:429)
    at com.android.ide.common.rendering.LayoutLibrary.createSession(LayoutLibrary.java:368)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask$2.compute(RenderTask.java:567)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask$2.compute(RenderTask.java:549)
    at com.intellij.openapi.application.impl.ApplicationImpl.runReadAction(ApplicationImpl.java:863)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.createRenderSession(RenderTask.java:549)
    at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.lambda$inflate$1(RenderTask.java:680)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

      

        
        
        
      

    

In this particular example, we are using the 26.0.0 support library.

Steps taken

• Invalid caches and restart
• Cleared .config and re-installed

This does not affect the rendering of the layout as the preview is still being generated, however it annoys our developers as it seems to prevent certain errors from displaying correctly.