gson - Unable to create converter for my class in Android Retrofit library

Question

Im migrating from using Volley to Retrofit, I already have gson class that I used before for converting JSONObject reponse to a object that implements gson annotations. When I'm trying to make http get request using retrofit but then my app crashes with this error :

 Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.lightbulb.pawesome/com.example.sample.retrofit.SampleActivity}: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unable to create converter for class com.lightbulb.pawesome.model.Pet
    for method GitHubService.getResponse

Im following the guide in retrofit site and I come up with these implementations :

This is my activity where I am trying to execute the retro http request:

public class SampleActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_sample);

        Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder()
                .baseUrl("**sample base url here**")
                .build();

        GitHubService service = retrofit.create(GitHubService.class);
        Call<Pet> callPet = service.getResponse("41", "40");
        callPet.enqueue(new Callback<Pet>() {
            @Override
            public void onResponse(Response<Pet> response) {
                Log.i("Response", response.toString());
            }

            @Override
            public void onFailure(Throwable t) {
                Log.i("Failure", t.toString());
            }
        });
        try{
            callPet.execute();
        } catch (IOException e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }
}

My interface which turned to be my API

public interface GitHubService {
    @GET("/ **sample here** /{petId}/{otherPet}")
    Call<Pet> getResponse(@Path("petId") String userId, @Path("otherPet") String otherPet);
}

And finally the Pet class which should be the reponse:

public class Pet implements Parcelable {

    public static final String ACTIVE = "1";
    public static final String NOT_ACTIVE = "0";

    @SerializedName("is_active")
    @Expose
    private String isActive;
    @SerializedName("pet_id")
    @Expose
    private String petId;
    @Expose
    private String name;
    @Expose
    private String gender;
    @Expose
    private String age;
    @Expose
    private String breed;
    @SerializedName("profile_picture")
    @Expose
    private String profilePicture;
    @SerializedName("confirmation_status")
    @Expose
    private String confirmationStatus;

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The confirmationStatus
     */
    public String getConfirmationStatus() {
        return confirmationStatus;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param confirmationStatus
     * The confirmation_status
     */
    public void setConfirmationStatus(String confirmationStatus) {
        this.confirmationStatus = confirmationStatus;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The isActive
     */
    public String getIsActive() {
        return isActive;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param isActive
     * The is_active
     */
    public void setIsActive(String isActive) {
        this.isActive = isActive;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The petId
     */
    public String getPetId() {
        return petId;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param petId
     * The pet_id
     */
    public void setPetId(String petId) {
        this.petId = petId;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The name
     */
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param name
     * The name
     */
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The gender
     */
    public String getGender() {
        return gender;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param gender
     * The gender
     */
    public void setGender(String gender) {
        this.gender = gender;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The age
     */
    public String getAge() {
        return age;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param age
     * The age
     */
    public void setAge(String age) {
        this.age = age;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The breed
     */
    public String getBreed() {
        return breed;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param breed
     * The breed
     */
    public void setBreed(String breed) {
        this.breed = breed;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @return
     * The profilePicture
     */
    public String getProfilePicture() {
        return profilePicture;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param profilePicture
     * The profile_picture
     */
    public void setProfilePicture(String profilePicture) {
        this.profilePicture = profilePicture;
    }


    protected Pet(Parcel in) {
        isActive = in.readString();
        petId = in.readString();
        name = in.readString();
        gender = in.readString();
        age = in.readString();
        breed = in.readString();
        profilePicture = in.readString();
    }

    @Override
    public int describeContents() {
        return 0;
    }

    @Override
    public void writeToParcel(Parcel dest, int flags) {
        dest.writeString(isActive);
        dest.writeString(petId);
        dest.writeString(name);
        dest.writeString(gender);
        dest.writeString(age);
        dest.writeString(breed);
        dest.writeString(profilePicture);
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unused")
    public static final Parcelable.Creator<Pet> CREATOR = new Parcelable.Creator<Pet>() {
        @Override
        public Pet createFromParcel(Parcel in) {
            return new Pet(in);
        }

        @Override
        public Pet[] newArray(int size) {
            return new Pet[size];
        }
    };
}

Answer 1

If anyone ever comes across this in the future because you are trying to define your own custom converter factory and are getting this error, it can also be caused by having multiple variables in a class with a misspelled or the same serialized name. IE:

public class foo {
  @SerializedName("name")
  String firstName;
  @SerializedName("name")
  String lastName;
}

Having serialized names defined twice (likely by mistake) will also throw this exact same error.

Update: Keep in mind that this logic also holds true via inheritance. If you extend to a parent class with an object that has the same Serialized name as you do in the sub-class, it will cause this same problem.