Styjun

Maybe I found the problem.

I don't want to overwride the build.gradle, because cordova create this file dynamically. But I searched why that cdvMinSdkVersion returns a wrong value. And the reason was this barcodescanner-plugin. The plugin gradle file has this line

ext.cdvMinSdkVersion = 15

which overwrite my value from AndroidManifest.xml. After I have remove and add the plugin again it works.
But I don't know why? Maybe someone could explain the order of the different gradle scripts.

As of release 2.14.0, the minSdkVersion has been increased to 16. If you prefer to have your app on a lower minSdkVersion and want to leverage the latest SDK, please disable PayPal for versions below API 16, add xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools inside the manifest's xml declaration, and add the following snippet to your AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="INSERT_YOUR_DESIRED_minSdkVersion_HERE" tools:overrideLibrary="com.paypal.android.sdk.payments"/>

In case of Hybrid/Ionic app such issue could get fixed by changing minSdkVersion in config.xml is what I did.

The problem for me was in cordova-plugin-browsertab.

You need to change line 1 of my_project/plugins/cordova-plugin-browsertab/src/android/BrowserTab.gradle to

def minSdkVersion = 19

Make sure you have the minimum SDK added to your config.xml

<preference name="android-minSdkVersion" value="19" />

Then remove and add cordova-android by:

cordova platform remove android
cordova platform add android

Here are some context to understand the things:

By default, when importing a library with a minSdkVersion value that's higher than the main manifest file, an error occurs and the library cannot be imported. To make the merger tool ignore this conflict and import the library while keeping your app's lower minSdkVersion value, add the overrideLibrary attribute to the tag. The attribute value can be one or more library package names (comma-separated), indicating the libraries that can override the main manifest's minSdkVersion.

For example, if your app's main manifest applies overrideLibrary like this:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 package="com.example.app"
 xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">
 <uses-sdk android:targetSdkVersion="22" android:minSdkVersion="2"
 tools:overrideLibrary="com.example.lib1, com.example.lib2"/>

Then the following manifest can be merged without an error regarding the <uses-sdk> tag, and the merged manifest keeps minSdkVersion="2" from the app manifest.

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 package="com.example.lib1">
 <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="4" />

This solved my problem.
Right click on app folder in android studio, select 'open module settings' | or just press F4. Go to Flavors Tab and change Min Sdk Version to the latest.
Problem Solved.

I use @Naga suggestion, and it's work.

config.xml that I change is not in the root of project, but in
platforms/android/app/src/main/res/xml/config.xml

and minSdkVersion in AndroidManifests.xml are not overwritten again

work like a charm:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 package="com.example.aspireone.myapplication"
 xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">

 <uses-sdk android:targetSdkVersion="28" android:minSdkVersion="14"
 tools:overrideLibrary="com.allyants.draggabletreeview"/>

from this error message:

 <!-- Manifest merger failed : uses-sdk:minSdkVersion 14 cannot be smaller than version 15 declared in library [com.github.jakebonk:DraggableTreeView:1.0.1] C:UsersASPIREone.gradlecachestransforms-1files-1.1DraggableTreeView-1.0.1.aar45f4095d2e68f3e9a1fbc4b73c7f9c33AndroidManifest.xml as the library might be using APIs not available in 14
 Suggestion: use a compatible library with a minSdk of at most 14,
 or increase this project's minSdk version to at least 15,
 or use tools:overrideLibrary="com.allyants.draggabletreeview" to force usage (may lead to runtime failures) -->

Try this instead.
Change minSdkVersion 15 to minSdkVersion 16 in build.gradle(module: app)

The way I fixed it was to go to platformsandroid folder and did a find-in-folder from my VS code editor for minSdkVersion and replaced all minSdkVersion=16 to minSdkVersion=19 regardless of whether cordova generated it dynamically or not. Everything worked fine for me after that.

Please Follow these three steps to solve this error in ionic 3

1) projectfolder/platforms/android/CordovaLib/AndroidManifest.xml

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="16" /> change this to

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="19" />

2) projectfolder/platforms/android/gradle.properties

cdvMinSdkVersion=16 or X change to

cdvMinSdkVersion=19

3) projectfolder/config.xml

<preference name="android-minSdkVersion" value="16" /> change to

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