Gradle build tool cannot find play-services-tasks.aar? Why?

The fix is to put google url above jcenter() in your repository list in gradle.

Here's the issue: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/80362794

After doing the following changes the error disappeared:

1. Removed maven { url 'https://maven.google.com' } from repositories in app build.gradle.
2. Added maven { url 'https://maven.google.com' } as first entry in allprojects/repositories in top level build.gradle
3. Changed all play-services and firebase dependencies to the latest versions
4. Changed version of google-services plugin to classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.0.1'