Android Glide library LicenseCheckError/DeadObjectException

Question

Recently we started to get crashes (Firebase Crashlytics) that appear to be originating from Glide, we could not find any visible reason in our app that causes it and the stack trace points to Glide. please have a look at the attached StackTrace.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

We do have custom implementation for the following classes:

AppGlideModule
DataFetcher
ModelLoader

but for URL fetching, we use Glide's GlideUrl which is the Glide Default.

build.gradle:

def glide_version = "4.11.0"
implementation "com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:$glide_version"
implementation "com.github.bumptech.glide:annotations:$glide_version"
kapt "com.github.bumptech.glide:compiler:$glide_version"

StackTrace:

Fatal Exception: com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseCheckError$LicenseServiceError: Error when calling licensing service
       at com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseClient.callLicenseCheckV2Method(LicenseClient.java:136)
       at com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseClient.checkLicenseInternal(LicenseClient.java:119)
       at com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseClient$LicenseServiceConnection.onServiceConnected(LicenseClient.java:162)
       at android.app.LoadedApk$ServiceDispatcher.doConnected(LoadedApk.java:2037)
       at android.app.LoadedApk$ServiceDispatcher$RunConnection.run(LoadedApk.java:2069)
       at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:888)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:100)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:213)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:8178)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java)
       at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:513)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1101)
Caused by android.os.DeadObjectException
       at android.os.BinderProxy.transactNative(BinderProxy.java)
       at android.os.BinderProxy.transact(BinderProxy.java:526)
       at com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseClient.callLicenseCheckV2Method(LicenseClient.java:129)
       at com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseClient.checkLicenseInternal(LicenseClient.java:119)
       at com.bumptech.glide.load.engine.cache.util.LicenseClient$LicenseServiceConnection.onServiceConnected(LicenseClient.java:162)
       at android.app.LoadedApk$ServiceDispatcher.doConnected(LoadedApk.java:2037)
       at android.app.LoadedApk$ServiceDispatcher$RunConnection.run(LoadedApk.java:2069)
       at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:888)
       at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:100)
       at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:213)
       at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:8178)
       at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java)
       at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:513)
       at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1101)

Edit:

this is not a "regular" DeadObjectException as it comes from within the Glide library that tries to access an internal LicenseCheckError class