IllegalArgumentException: com.google.android.gms.common.internal.db

Question

Starting about 36 hours ago (August 18), I noticed a huge surge in the number of exceptions caused by the new exclusion from Google Play services.

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: null reference at com.google.android.gms.common.internal.db(SourceFile:45) at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.g.ao.a(SourceFile:60) at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.tba(SourceFile:766) at com.google.android.gms.ads.internal.tmrun(SourceFile:43) at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:808) at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:103) at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193) at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5299) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Method.java) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515) at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:829) at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:645) at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(NativeStart.java) 

A few observations:

• We noted this problem in only one application, but not in others.
• 7 days before this, no changes were made to the application.
• Both Android 4 and 5 for different vendors. No Android 2.3.
• Google Play Services SDK 7.5. It looks like it also appears in previous versions (6.x).

Ideas?