Launching the Android Emulator from the Command Line

9 Comments on Launching the Android Emulator from the Command Line

I’m not sure which update exactly broke it, but recently I got this when trying to launch the Android Emulator from the CLI:

$ emulator -list-avds
Nexus_5X_API_25

$ emulator -avd Nexus_5X_API_25
[140735953220544]:ERROR:./android/qt/qt_setup.cpp:28:Qt library not found at ../emulator/lib64/qt/lib
Could not launch '../emulator/qemu/darwin-x86_64/qemu-system-i386': No such file or directory

Apparently there’s some relative path linking happening, which of course fails when running the emulator command from a project directory.

The fix is to run the emulator command from the directory in which it resides. Some command combinations later, this is the result (with Nexus_5X_API_25 being the name of the created virtual device):

cd $(dirname $(which emulator)) && ./emulator -avd Nexus_5X_API_25

UPDATE 2017-11-28: As mentioned by Piotr in the comments below, another way to fix it, is to include the path of the emulator binary in your $PATH environment variable.

If installed correctly, you will most likely find some references to $ANDROID_HOME in your .bash_profile. Below that block, add this line to it:

export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$PATH"
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Published by Bramus!

Bramus is a frontend web developer from Belgium, working as a Chrome Developer Relations Engineer at Google. From the moment he discovered view-source at the age of 14 (way back in 1997), he fell in love with the web and has been tinkering with it ever since (more …)

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9 Comments

  1. Pingback: Fix for the Android Emulator crashing during launch | Bram.us
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  3. .bash_profile

    ANDROID_HOME=/Users/you/Library/Android/sdk
    PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH
    PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$PATH
    PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin:$PATH
    PATH=$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$PATH

    The last line solves this problem for me.

    Reply

    1. Hi Piotr,

      Thanks for this suggestion. It indeed works. I have updated the post with the information you’ve provided here.

      Regards,
      Bramus.

      Reply
    2. Reply

    3. Preference>Appearances &behavior >system settings>Android SDK
      You will find “SDK Tools” on the right .
      Make sure the option–“Android Emulator” has been installed already, then choose it and Apply it.

      Reply

  4. Hi,
    I’m on MacOs. My Android Emulator was working till today. I now have the same qt lib error as you.
    I have added the line :
    export PATH=”$ANDROID_HOME/emulator:$PATH”
    to my .bash_profile.

    It fixes this issue but I then have another issue:

    emulator -avd Nexus_5X_API_23_2
    createImpl: failed to create context (EGL_NO_CONTEXT result)

    By chance, do you know this issue?
    Thanks

    Reply

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