Hi all, thanks for the suggestions. I'll address each of them best I can -- unfortunately the error has ceased so I'm not sure what was causing it.
First, I'm not using any images in the app -- it's a very simple audio player for a specific purpose, so just a few buttons and listviews. I think the "image" it refers to must be something built-in to android or java.
Second, I did try remove and re-install a few times without success.
Third, it doesn't even seem to start the app -- the crash is on main_activity_create when opening the first activity.
As far as what did happen between it not working and now:
1. Connected a different device on B4A Bridge (Samsung tablet) and deployed to that. No issues either with Debug or Release.
2. So I thought maybe it's something with the phone I was originally deploying to (ZTE Axon 7 running RR custom rom, Nougat based) -- removed and re-installed to the phone, and the error seems to be gone.
3. Since, cannot make the error recur. I'll try to do so to narrow it down, but it was happening consistently until I deployed to a new device and then came back to the original one. Is it possible that makes some difference in the build?
Thanks again for all the suggestions, and I'll update further if I can recreate and/or narrow down the problem in case anybody else comes across it.
G