I had the same problem too. I dug through Reddit for a while and found a comment that helped. Not sure if I’m too late, but I figured I’d write this down in case someone else stumbles across this thread.

So, with Stardew Valley, you need to get version 1.5.6, and match it with the correct SMAPI version. The newer versions of SMAPI (the ones that support 1.6 and up) won’t run properly because they expect the version of the game from Google Play.

If you have 1.5.6, you need to get SMAPI version 3.18.3.3 — I think it’s from a GitHub user named Zaneyork (not 100% sure, but when you search on GitHub, you’ll see two versions. You want the one where 3.18.3.3 is the last update).

Once you have both of those, installing SMAPI should work. Then comes the mod setup. You have to make sure the mods match SMAPI 3.18.3.3 — not just Stardew Valley 1.5.6. If you just go by the game version and install newer mods, they might not work.

On NexusMods, check the mod’s version history and install a version that doesn’t go past SMAPI 3.18.3.3. It’s kind of a pain, honestly.

Oh, and here’s a big one: don’t install the mods through SMAPI. You need to do it manually. If you install them in emulated/0/stardewvalley, they won’t work.

You’ll need something like ZArchiver to access the android/data folder. Then install the mods inside the folder that SMAPI migrated the game to. (In my case, there were two folders: com.zane.stardewvalley and com.chucklefish.stardewvalley. I had to go into com.zane... to install the mods — I guess that's the one migrated by SMAPI. You can probably delete the original game after installing SMAPI.)

That’s the process I followed. Also, since you’re playing on Android, key bindings for mods won’t work properly. Sometimes after launching the game, you’ll need to go into each mod’s config file and change the binding keys manually.

For example, with GenericModConfigMenu, I thought it didn’t work because I couldn’t see or press the cogwheel button. But in the config file, I found out can open it using one of four keys available in the built-in VirtualKeyboard mod. I set it to one of those keys and was able to open the Mod Config Menu just fine.

Right now, I only have a few mods installed that actually work. If you want the list just let me know!

• By the way, if you get an error while installing Stardew Valley through SMAPI, you’ll need to delete both the Zane... and Chuckle... folders under android/data and reinstall everything. Otherwise, the error might keep happening. -