Android Studio fails to install update (error : Failed to read or create install properties file.)

Question

Screenshot of error

I am running [ Android Studio 2.3 Build #AI-162.3764568, built on February 24, 2017 JRE: 1.8.0_112-release-b06 amd64 JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o] on Ubuntu 16.04. From last few days android studio gives me error on trying to update. I have no idea how to fix this.

Clench

Answer 1

I ran the Android studio as administrator and then it worked as it is a permission issue.

Jehovah

Thanks for the tip. I seem always to forget setting AS to run as an administrator after each installation on a Windows PC. – Approximate

or sudo if you're on command line: cd into $ANDROID_HOME$/sdk/tools/bin and sudo bash sdkmanager "platforms;android-26" "build-tools;26.0.1" – Wieland

On Windows I manually had to create an empty repositories.cfg inside c:\users\me\.android – Lashay

For Windows 10 to always run as administrator: 1- go to the startup location (something like C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Android Studio) 2- right-click the shortcut 3- select 'Troubleshoot Compatibility' 4- tick the box next to 'The application requires additional permissions' 5- click 'Test the program' (the program will start and the administrator confirmation dialog will appear) 6- after confirming, go back to the compatibility troubleshooter and click 'Next' 7- select 'Yes, save these settings for this program'. Now it will always run as administrator. – Cantlon

Answer 2

chmod 777 $ANDROID_HOME -R This is not a good solution like @spark mentioned.

I solved this issue by setting the ownership to myself

sudo chown $USER:$USER $ANDROID_HOME -R

Hoatzin

You should not change the directory ownership unless you have installed the SDK in that user's directory. Invoking sudo chown tells me otherwise. – Venose

sudo chown $USER: $ANDROID_HOME -R should be enough – Nanine

This worked for me, and I replaced the deprecated $ANDROID_HOME with $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT. – Hedgcock

Changing the group instead of the owner and using g=u as permission might be a less invasive option. Making all files executable is not a very good idea. – Athalie

On OSX, this command worked for me: sudo chown -R $USER: $ANDROID_HOME. The -R had to be moved at the front. – Tonettetoney

sudo chown -R $USER: $ANDROID_HOME with the -R between chown and user – Eisteddfod

Answer 3

Problem Solved!

The permission of my Android directory was set to write only by root so android-studio was unable to write any changes. I changed the permissions to 777 and it fixed the problem.

Thanks for Help anyways.

Clench

how to set permission of that folder? – Willams

link to set permissions winaero.com/blog/… – Inhaler

This is more of a workaround than a solution. Setting such permissions is a security problem. – Warchaw

As stated by some people here already, setting folder permissions (and sub-folders using -R) to 777 is like saying "OK guys, this is free for all now!". The accepted solution should be the one proposed by @SAJ – Adriell

777 will make all files executable. Why not use go=u or ugo=rwX instead? – Athalie

Answer 4

Solution 1:

Use: sudo chown $USER: $ANDROID_HOME -R

My solution is setting folder permissions (and sub-folders using -R).

Root cause:

The permission of my Android SDK directory was set to write only by root so android-studio was unable to write any changes.

Detailed Process:

Take $ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools for example:

sudo chown $USER: $ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

Before executing the command line:

bin ls -la $ANDROID_HOME/
total 56
drwxr-xr-x@  26 gongzelong  staff    832 Nov  3 01:51 .
drwx------@ 104 gongzelong  staff   3328 Nov  6 17:55 ..
-rw-r--r--@   1 gongzelong  staff  18436 Oct 26 21:17 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x    2 gongzelong  staff     64 Nov  4 01:47 .downloadIntermediates
-rw-r--r--    1 gongzelong  staff     16 Nov  6 17:46 .knownPackages
drwxr-xr-x   41 gongzelong  staff   1312 Nov  4 23:08 .temp
-rw-r--r--@   1 gongzelong  staff   1158 Aug 30  2018 SDK Readme.txt
drwxr-xr-x@   2 gongzelong  staff     64 Aug 29  2016 add-ons
drwxr-xr-x@  34 gongzelong  staff   1088 Nov  3 01:47 build-tools
drwxr-xr-x@   6 gongzelong  staff    192 Apr 24  2019 cmake
drwxr-xr-x@  51 gongzelong  staff   1632 Oct 24  2016 docs
drwxr-xr-x   17 root        wheel    544 Nov 12  2019 emulator
drwxr-xr-x@   8 gongzelong  staff    256 Jul 31  2018 extras
drwxr-xr-x@   3 gongzelong  staff     96 Nov  7  2017 fonts
drwxr-xr-x@   9 gongzelong  staff    288 Apr 21  2020 licenses
drwxr-xr-x@   6 gongzelong  staff    192 Apr 24  2019 lldb
drwxr-xr-x    7 gongzelong  staff    224 Nov  4 22:47 ndk
drwxr-xr-x@  20 gongzelong  staff    640 Sep 29  2018 ndk-bundle
drwxr-xr-x@   5 gongzelong  staff    160 Dec 15  2016 patcher
**drwxr-xr-x   19 root        wheel    608 Nov 12  2019 platform-tools**
drwxr-xr-x@  16 gongzelong  staff    512 Nov  3 01:47 platforms
drwxr-xr-x@  33 gongzelong  staff   1056 Feb 17  2020 skins
drwxr-xr-x@  14 gongzelong  staff    448 Nov  3 01:51 sources
drwxr-xr-x@  13 gongzelong  staff    416 Apr  8  2019 system-images
drwxr-xr-x@   2 gongzelong  staff     64 Feb  4  2018 temp
drwxr-xr-x   15 gongzelong  staff    480 Oct 26 21:18 tools

After executing the command line:

➜  bin ls -la $ANDROID_HOME/
total 56
drwxr-xr-x@  26 gongzelong  staff    832 Nov  3 01:51 .
drwx------@ 104 gongzelong  staff   3328 Nov  6 17:55 ..
-rw-r--r--@   1 gongzelong  staff  18436 Oct 26 21:17 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x    2 gongzelong  staff     64 Nov  4 01:47 .downloadIntermediates
-rw-r--r--    1 gongzelong  staff     16 Nov  6 17:46 .knownPackages
drwxr-xr-x   41 gongzelong  staff   1312 Nov  4 23:08 .temp
-rw-r--r--@   1 gongzelong  staff   1158 Aug 30  2018 SDK Readme.txt
drwxr-xr-x@   2 gongzelong  staff     64 Aug 29  2016 add-ons
drwxr-xr-x@  34 gongzelong  staff   1088 Nov  3 01:47 build-tools
drwxr-xr-x@   6 gongzelong  staff    192 Apr 24  2019 cmake
drwxr-xr-x@  51 gongzelong  staff   1632 Oct 24  2016 docs
drwxr-xr-x   17 root        wheel    544 Nov 12  2019 emulator
drwxr-xr-x@   8 gongzelong  staff    256 Jul 31  2018 extras
drwxr-xr-x@   3 gongzelong  staff     96 Nov  7  2017 fonts
drwxr-xr-x@   9 gongzelong  staff    288 Apr 21  2020 licenses
drwxr-xr-x@   6 gongzelong  staff    192 Apr 24  2019 lldb
drwxr-xr-x    7 gongzelong  staff    224 Nov  4 22:47 ndk
drwxr-xr-x@  20 gongzelong  staff    640 Sep 29  2018 ndk-bundle
drwxr-xr-x@   5 gongzelong  staff    160 Dec 15  2016 patcher
**drwxr-xr-x   19 gongzelong  wheel    608 Nov 12  2019 platform-tools**
drwxr-xr-x@  16 gongzelong  staff    512 Nov  3 01:47 platforms
drwxr-xr-x@  33 gongzelong  staff   1056 Feb 17  2020 skins
drwxr-xr-x@  14 gongzelong  staff    448 Nov  3 01:51 sources
drwxr-xr-x@  13 gongzelong  staff    416 Apr  8  2019 system-images
drwxr-xr-x@   2 gongzelong  staff     64 Feb  4  2018 temp
drwxr-xr-x   15 gongzelong  staff    480 Oct 26 21:18 tools

Then we do the update in SDK management:

before and after install sdk result screenshot

Solution 2:

Run Android Studio as administration.

sudo /Applications/Android\ Studio\ 4.1.0.app/Contents/MacOS/studio

It could also install the android sdk update successfully

Masterpiece

Answer 5

for macos:

sudo chmod -R 777 ~/Library/Android

Eisteddfod

Awesome! Worked for me :) yay..! – Metamer

This will only work if your ANDROID_HOME is ~/Library/Android 😉 — and 777 is a bit over the top. g=u (set group to user) might be a less invasive option. – Athalie

Just look for a directory with wrong permissions and chown it. – Weakly

Answer 6

1. Delete old version
2. Reboot
3. Install new version

hope this helps :)

Snore

It helped me while using: Android Studio Koala | 2024.1.1 Build #AI-241.15989.150.2411.11948838, built on June 10, 2024 Runtime version: 17.0.10+0-17.0.10b1087.21-11609105 aarch64 VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o. macOS 14.5 GC: G1 Young Generation, G1 Old Generation Memory: 2048M Cores: 8 Metal Rendering is ON Registry: ide.experimental.ui=true terminal.new.ui=true Non-Bundled Plugins: dev.j-a.swift (1.0.0.345-241) com.intellij.marketplace (241.15989.206) com.jetbrains.kmm (0.8.2(241)-6) – Wreck

Answer 7

If you are on a *nix system, you should locate $ANDROID_HOME. Mine is installed inside /opt. Given that this directory belongs to root, you will need to invoke sudo before running your command.

Venose

Answer 8

I had the same issues on windows and the problem for me was where the SDK was related.

When you go to File - Project Structure - Android SDK Location you can see what SDK directory is defined. The default SDK location was C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk and it seems you need to be an Administrator to be able to download packages.

I changed it to my user directory so I don't need admin privileges and I was able to download the required packages without any problems.

Also make sure you accpeted all licences before.

Europe

Running Android Studio with administrator privileges worked for my case. – Allhallows

Answer 9

I was unable to update the platform-tools and emulators. What I found was there was an .installer directory in each of those directories. Deleting those allowed the update to complete.

Socinian

Thanks for that tip. I tried any other solution regarding fixing permissions but nothing solved my error. But deleting those ".installer" directories solved it finally. – Sate

Answer 10

I ran in to this issue and when I navigated to the existing install of the SDK I found that it was symlinked to a previous version that I installed using Homebrew (which is no longer supported).

The fix was to remove this symlink, then Android Studio was able to install the updated SDK as expected.

Nutlet

Answer 11

I was facing the same problem, I solved it by first enabling the "Force https://... sources to be fetched using http://..." setting in the SDK Manager Tools > Options menu. and then I opened Android Studio as administrator.

Niehaus

Answer 12

I faced a similar problem when I tried to install new packages using SDK Manager in the Android command line tool.

Error: failed to read or create install properties file in SDK manager.

The problem occurred because the SDK manager cannot figure out how to validate licenses without administrator permissions.

Solution: Run the command line as an administrator.

Respond

Answer 13

I fixed this on linux by running sudo chown /opt/android-sdk Change /opt/android-sdk to the path of your android sdk

Shatterproof

Answer 14

I had a fresh Installation of Android Studio. I ran the install script with root access the first time so my SDK files went buggy and the next time I opened Android Studio, It opened with regular user permissions and I was unable to update the SDK.

I just deleted the initial SDK folder and let the studio download it again and the problem was gone.

Spoonbill

Answer 15

In windows, you may run Android Studio as Administrator

Cleft

The OP is running Ubuntu, and randomly running programs with elevated permissions is never a good idea – Pahari