error: 'SDL init failure, reason is: No available video device' when launching AVD

Question

This is killing me. Every time I try to run my Android app in Eclipse, I'm getting the error:

[2011-05-24 23:11:04 - app] Android Launch!
[2011-05-24 23:11:04 - app] adb is running normally.
[2011-05-24 23:11:04 - app] Performing droid.blah.app activity launch
[2011-05-24 23:11:04 - app] Automatic Target Mode: launching new emulator with     compatible AVD 'default'
[2011-05-24 23:11:04 - app] Launching a new emulator with Virtual Device 'default'
[2011-05-24 23:11:04 - Emulator] SDL init failure, reason is: No available video device

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit and the Android 2.3.3 SDK. I've googled EXHAUSTIVELY to try to find a solution, tried installing all the 32-bit libraries that were suggested here, but they're already installed.

I'm seriously considering just moving to the 32-bit version of Ubuntu, but it seems from what I've read that other people can get it working. JUST NOT ME! Does anyone have any advice? Thanks!

Kush

Answer 1

You need more 32 bit libraries. ;)

On Ubuntu/Debian run:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Fantoccini

You'll also need lib32stdc. sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32stdc++6 – Grotesque

Answer 2

I also got this same error when running automated builds on our Jenkins server. I think the problem is that the emulator needs to talk to an X display. If you are running this on your own machine, you can try setting the DISPLAY environment variable in the terminal before trying to launch the emulator. Something like:

export DISPLAY=:0.0

If you are running this on a headless Jenkins server, then you need to run an Xvnc session during the build to provide an X server for the emulator.

Ecclesiasticus

Answer 3

I get the "SDL init failure" when running the "emulator" command with a user with not enough privileges. Ex. jenkins user gets the error, but not root.

Drop to the commandline and run the emulator command with same user that is running eclipse. Then switch to root and run emulator command again.

If it works with user root, consider installing and running eclipse as root
(not recommended, but I don't know the proper way to do it, this is just a workaround).

Windowshop