Strange error in android studio, nothing similar online and no idea of the cause

I am a new android developer, and every time I try to run the emulator to test my app I get the following error:

2020-08-05 15:08:30.625 8361-8361/com.example.tender E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.example.tender, PID: 8361
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Failed resolution of: Lcom/google/android/gms/common/internal/zzx;
    at com.google.android.gms.measurement.internal.zzw.zzaT(Unknown Source:0)
    at com.google.android.gms.measurement.AppMeasurementContentProvider.onCreate(Unknown Source:4)
    at android.content.ContentProvider.attachInfo(ContentProvider.java:2388)
    at android.content.ContentProvider.attachInfo(ContentProvider.java:2358)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:7239)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installContentProviders(ActivityThread.java:6780)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:6697)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1300(ActivityThread.java:237)
    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1913)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:106)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:223)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7656)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:592)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:947)
 Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Didn't find class "com.google.android.gms.common.internal.zzx" on path: DexPathList[[zip file "/data/app/~~7yQ-4JW3qh-QJVNZiOJdsA==/com.example.tender-hor871ahRQoy1oE54-r8dg==/base.apk"],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/~~7yQ-4JW3qh-QJVNZiOJdsA==/com.example.tender-hor871ahRQoy1oE54-r8dg==/lib/x86, /system/lib, /system_ext/lib, /product/lib]]
    at dalvik.system.BaseDexClassLoader.findClass(BaseDexClassLoader.java:207)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:379)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:312)
    at com.google.android.gms.measurement.internal.zzw.zzaT(Unknown Source:0) 
    at com.google.android.gms.measurement.AppMeasurementContentProvider.onCreate(Unknown Source:4) 
    at android.content.ContentProvider.attachInfo(ContentProvider.java:2388) 
    at android.content.ContentProvider.attachInfo(ContentProvider.java:2358) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:7239) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installContentProviders(ActivityThread.java:6780) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:6697) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1300(ActivityThread.java:237) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1913) 
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:106) 
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:223) 
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:7656) 
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method) 
    at com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(RuntimeInit.java:592) 
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:947) 

Any idea what could be causing this? I reverted my changes for the last two days to no avail, and searched google with nobody experiencing anything similar. If someone can make sense of the error, please help. For context, I recently added the Google Places SDK into my app, but this error occurs even when I comment out all the code related to that.

EDIT: As requested, here is my module-level build.gradle file:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 30
    buildToolsVersion "30.0.0"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.example.tender"
        minSdkVersion 21
        targetSdkVersion 30
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"

        testInstrumentationRunner "androidx.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"
    }

    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android-optimize.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    implementation fileTree(dir: "libs", include: ["*.jar"])
    implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.1.0'
    implementation 'androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:1.1.3'
    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:17.0.0'
    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:8.4.0'
    implementation 'com.google.android.libraries.places:places:2.2.0'

}

I can't comment yet, but I'm assuming you're using R8 or Proguard when building, and it's obfuscating classes/fields/interfaces etc within the Google Places SDK that it tries to find at runtime through reflection.

Find the relevant rules for that library to include within your R8/Proguard rules file so they'll remain un-obfuscated when building.

EDIT: Also, are you using multidex with this application?

EDIT2: Worked with OP in the comments - issue seems to have stemmed from using the older general purpose bundled 'play-services' library in conjunction with the specific play-services libraries (like maps and places). Removing the bundled library fixed their issue.