Could not find manifest-merger.jar (com.android.tools.build:manifest-merger:26.1.2) error after gradle 4.4 upgrade : <p>After updrading to gradle 4.4:</p>

<p><em>gradle-wrapper.properties</em></p>

<pre><code>distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-4.4-all.zip
</code></pre>

<p>Android project compilation fails with the following error:</p>

<pre><code>Could not find manifest-merger.jar (com.android.tools.build:manifest-merger:26.1.2).
Searched in the following locations:
    https://jcenter.bintray.com/com/android/tools/build/manifest-merger/26.1.2/manifest-merger-26.1.2.jar
</code></pre>
