Build fails with Gradle 4.5 or 4.4.1

[tipleavalentin]

A problem occurred configuring project ':app'.

Could not resolve all dependencies for configuration ':app:_debugApk'.
A problem occurred configuring project ':react-native-smart-splashscreen'.
> Failed to notify project evaluation listener.
> com.android.build.gradle.tasks.factory.AndroidJavaCompile.setDependencyCacheDir(Ljava/io/File;)

[FreddyPoly]

Did you try upgrading your gradle version in android/build.gradle ? From:

...
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.3'
    }
...

to

...
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.3.3'
    }
...

Thanks to this answer
For me, it resolved the error but gave me another error:

The SDK Build Tools revision (23.0.3) is too low for project ':react-native-smart-splashscreen'. Minimum required is 25.0.0

Even though my buildToolsVersion version is set to 27.0.3

But adding this code to android/build.gradle:

subprojects {
    afterEvaluate {project ->
        if (project.hasProperty("android")) {
            android {
                compileSdkVersion 26
                buildToolsVersion '27.0.3'
            }
        }
    }
}

Thanks to this answer