Android Studio is “Borked” — my checklist for fixing build issues

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This article was originally posted to Medium on Jun 19, 2018 · 2 min read

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Photo by Simson Petrol on Unsplash

I recently encountered an issue, where despite my project being configured correctly (and building on my colleagues machine), I couldn’t get it working in my local environment.

I tried multiple clean builds, cloning a fresh repo, rebooting my machine, upgrading all my dependency versions, and just about everything else I could think of to solve my issue.

My issue was: the compiler would not recognize any imports from the Android Test Support libraries. I would get the error “Cannot find Symbol” for ActivityTestRule (and other essential classes). Android Studio can get into this “borked” state for a variety of reasons though.

I ended needing to clear all my system caches (I used a great script from Sebastiano Poggi), which eventually fixed my issue.

I am sharing my troubleshooting checklist in case you encounter something similar with Android Studio. Keep in mind the further down in the list you go, the more destructive the action.

  1. Make sure you have updated Android Studio, and the Gradle version in your project to the most current stable version.

  2. Backup any special environment variables or Gradle property files which your project needs/expects

  3. Clone a fresh instance of your project to a new directory

  4. Reboot Your Computer.

  5. Restart AS using the “Invalidate Cache” option
    Access this in AS from: File\”Invalidate Caches and Restart…”

  6. Clear Project Cache — there are 2 hidden directories in the main level of your project (after your first compile). Hint: on Mac type “cmd-shift-.” if you don’t see these files in your Finder window.
    Delete both the directories:
    <project home>/.idea
    <project home>/.gradle

  7. Delete the system Gradle cache:
    Delete this folder:
    /<userhome>/.gradle/caches

  8. Refresh your project dependencies manually during build
    Use a gradle command similar to :
    $gradlew assemble — — refresh-dependencies

  9. If none of these steps fix your problem, use the “Deep Clean” method . Execute this script:
    Warning, this is the last step for a reason. If you run this script, it will reset all of your Android Studio caches, and will make your future builds slower (until the caches recover).
    https://github.com/rock3r/deep-clean
    Edit: there has been an update to this script to v1.5 since this article was released!

It can be frustrating to experience Android Studio build issues. I hope these steps will help you recover quickly.