Ionic 3 + Android: Cannot build android apk with NDK r18

[anatoly-spb]

Bug Report

Ionic Info
Run ionic info from a terminal/cmd prompt and paste the output below.

Ionic:

   ionic (Ionic CLI)  : 4.1.2 (h:\npm\node_modules\ionic)
   Ionic Framework    : ionic-angular 3.9.2
   @ionic/app-scripts : 3.1.8

Cordova:

   cordova (Cordova CLI) : 8.1.0
   Cordova Platforms     : android 7.1.1
   Cordova Plugins       : cordova-plugin-ionic-webview 1.1.1, (and 11 other plugins)

System:

   Android SDK Tools : 26.1.1 (h:\mobile\android\sdk)
   NodeJS            : v8.11.4 (h:\npm\node_modules\node\bin\node.exe)
   npm               : 5.10.0
   OS                : Windows 7

Describe the Bug
ionic cordova build android fails with:

BUILD FAILED in 2s
cmd: Command failed with exit code 1 Error output:
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring project ':CordovaLib'.
> No toolchains found in the NDK toolchains folder for ABI with prefix: mips64el-linux-android

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org

BUILD FAILED in 2s
[ERROR] An error occurred while running subprocess cordova.

Steps to Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

ionic start latest blank
cd latest
ionic cordova platforms add android
ionic cordova build android

Related Code
If you are able to illustrate the bug with an example, please provide a sample application via an online code collaborator such as StackBlitz, or GitHub.

Expected Behavior
Build without errors

Additional Context

I have found the following well known issue https://github.com/android-ndk/ndk/wiki/Changelog-r18:

This version of the NDK is incompatible with the Android Gradle plugin version 3.0 or older. If you see an error like No toolchains found in the NDK toolchains folder for ABI with prefix: mips64el-linux-android, update your project file to use plugin version 3.1 or newer. You will also need to upgrade to Android Studio 3.1 or newer.

It seems to me this is a cordova issue: apache/cordova-android#507

[mhartington]

Hi there! This issue does not appear to be an issue with the framework itself, so it will be closes. Let's keep the conversation/tracking of issues related to cordova on their issue tracker.