Exception java.lang.RuntimeException ERROR APP CRASHING ON GOOGLE PLAY

My app works on test device but crashes on playstore with this ERROR:

Exception java.lang.RuntimeException:
  at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity (ActivityThread.java:4048)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity (ActivityThread.java:4312)
  at android.app.servertransaction.LaunchActivityItem.execute (LaunchActivityItem.java:101)
  at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.executeCallbacks (TransactionExecutor.java:135)
  at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.execute (TransactionExecutor.java:95)
  at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage (ActivityThread.java:2571)
  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage (Handler.java:106)
  at android.os.Looper.loopOnce (Looper.java:226)
  at android.os.Looper.loop (Looper.java:313)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.main (ActivityThread.java:8741)
  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke
  at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run (RuntimeInit.java:571)
  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main (ZygoteInit.java:1067)
Caused by java.lang.ClassNotFoundException:
  at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass (BaseDexClassLoader.java:259)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass (ClassLoader.java:379)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass (ClassLoader.java:312)
  at android.app.AppComponentFactory.instantiateActivity (AppComponentFactory.java:95)
  at androidx.core.app.CoreComponentFactory.instantiateActivity (CoreComponentFactory.java:45)
  at android.app.Instrumentation.newActivity (Instrumentation.java:1328)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity (ActivityThread.java:4035)

I thought it might have something to do with proguard so I tried disabling it by creating a proguaurd-rules.pro file in platform>android>app so the app file contains the proguard-rules.pro. I honestly copied and pasted it there from another project so maybe this has caused an issue but I didn’t think it would.

After I added that file I went in to the build.gradle and added this code:

            release {
                signingConfig signingConfigs.release
                minifyEnabled true
                proguardFiles 'proguard-rules.pro'
            }
            debug {
                minifyEnabled false
                proguardFiles 'proguard-rules.pro'
            }
        }

That did nothing for the crash so I went back and changed the code to this:

            release {
                signingConfig signingConfigs.release
                minifyEnabled false
                useproguard false
                proguardFiles 'proguard-rules.pro'
            }
            debug {
                minifyEnabled false
                useproguard false
                proguardFiles 'proguard-rules.pro'
            }
        }

the crashes are still occurring and I am still getting the same error message on the play console, what am I doing wrong? Is this even a proguard issue or maybe something else?

Thank you.