Android Studio suddenly cannot resolve symbols

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Android Studio 0.4.2 was working fine and today I opened it and almost everything was red and the auto-completion had stopped working. I look at the imports and AS seems to be telling me it can't find android.support.v4 all of a sudden (offering me the option to remove the unused imports). (android.support.v7 seems to be fine though).

Things I have tried:

Rebuilding the project
Cleaning the project
Syncing with Gradle Files
Closing the Project, closing AS and relaunching / reopening
File > Invalidate Caches / Restart
Examining Lint, didn't see anything obvious
Double checking all support libraries are up to date in the SDK manager
Examining my Build.gradle, although no changes and it's the same as usual, the way it was working all the time.

Here it is in case it's relevant:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.7.+'
    }
}
apply plugin: 'android'

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion '19.0.0'

    defaultConfig {
        minSdkVersion 8
        targetSdkVersion 19
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:19.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:gridlayout-v7:19.0.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:19.0.0'
    compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:4.0.30'
    compile project(':libraries:facebook')
    compile files('libs/core.jar')
}

When I hit "Sync with Gradle" and open "Project Settings" I get a red error telling me I have duplicate library references and to remove the unused ones.. enter image description here

My project compiles and runs fine but I really need the autocomplete working!! Does anyone have any suggestions?

enter image description here

Bradeord answered 13/1, 2014 at 20:24 Comment(8)

Every single Android Studio update breaks projects, I'm sick of it already. Why can't they hold on and release a usable version. – Pinchas 16/2, 2014 at 22:54

Before cleaning or removing any file, read this answer first. It may solve your problem. https://mcmap.net/q/50077/-android-studio-cannot-resolve-symbol-but-code-executes-correctly – Benisch 18/5, 2014 at 10:8

"Invalidate Caches / Restart" worked for me. – Effluence 4/10, 2015 at 17:42

Had the same problem and fixed with the answer on this SO post https://mcmap.net/q/50078/-buildtypes-cannot-be-applied-to-groovy-lang-closure – Morocco 18/10, 2015 at 14:22

accept this answer so users won't delete anything manually https://mcmap.net/q/49910/-android-studio-suddenly-cannot-resolve-symbols – Arcturus 7/3, 2018 at 22:46

@Arcturus you can see in my question I tried that and it failed me. So my question could be reworded as "what to do when invalidate+restart does not work" – Bradeord 7/3, 2018 at 22:53

@DanielWilson it works, try again when that will happen ) – Arcturus 7/3, 2018 at 22:56

None of the answers helped me. I asked someone with a working android studio to pass me their android sdk folder, I copied it and replaced my sdk folder for theirs. That did it for me – Doubleedged 27/1, 2021 at 12:32

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You've already gone down the list of most things that would be helpful, but you could try:

Exit Android Studio
Back up your project
Delete all the .iml files and the .idea folder
Relaunch Android Studio and reimport your project

By the way, the error messages you see in the Project Structure dialog are bogus for the most part.

UPDATE:

Android Studio 0.4.3 is available in the canary update channel, and should hopefully solve most of these issues. There may be some lingering problems; if you see them in 0.4.3, let us know, and try to give us a reliable set of steps to reproduce so we can ensure we've taken care of all code paths.

Sparker answered 13/1, 2014 at 20:39 Comment(22)

Wow that answer was beautiful thanks so damn much it seems to be working now \O/ :D – Bradeord 13/1, 2014 at 20:46

One more comment I find I am having to do this every time I am changing machines now which is interesting - not a big deal but an annoyance all the same, no idea what the actual issue could be – Bradeord 15/1, 2014 at 12:57

This worked for me. I was going nuts with this, a full day of trying to figure it out! Thanks for the answer. – Therewith 18/1, 2014 at 23:51

For me it was enough to delete the libraries folder in .idea and the press sync project with gradle. – Fibroblast 22/1, 2014 at 20:36

The 0.4.6 release fixed this for me (though I never got around to trying the above steps as it was building fine from Gradle). – Rachellrachelle 28/2, 2014 at 17:2

Worked for me, Android Studio 0.8.1, just have to re-enable VCS. – Flowerlike 16/7, 2014 at 15:22

I have the same problem with 0.8.9 and tried all solutions listed here with no luck :( – Assibilate 7/10, 2014 at 12:20

AS 1.0.1 and had similar problem (after extending a JAR classpath to a submodule). This solved my problem. The answer is not 100% satisfactory in that this is a recurring problem and it does not explain why it occurs - but it worked! – Leipzig 22/1, 2015 at 7:26

Didn't work for me in AndroidStudio 1.2 RC. This is a nightmare. – Lacto 22/4, 2015 at 13:42

I just restarted Android Studio And it back normally – Millstream 16/1, 2016 at 20:50

Still works at AS 1.5.1, saved tons of time for me, thanks. – Immaterialism 17/3, 2016 at 19:21

AS 2.2 Preview 3: removed *.iml file from project explorer and restarted AS. This solution worked for me – Fusspot 16/6, 2016 at 4:55

Worked for me after installing latest version – Silden 26/7, 2016 at 13:12

Go through the link and it worked for me. 1.) Choose File option from menu on left top side of android studio. 2.) Select the option : "Invalidate Cache/ Restart.." It will open an dialog. 3.) Click on the first button with option : "Invalidate and Restart" 4.) It will close the studio and restart it. Start indexing of the project. It resolved my problem > Go to File -> Invalidate Cache/ Restart -> Invalidate and Restart Source youtube.com/watch?v=FX_gCTpqhwM – Lachlan 16/8, 2016 at 12:32

Deleting .idea and .iml or deleting libraries inside .idea did not work for me. Also invalidate cache/Restart did not work for me – Kiln 8/4, 2017 at 12:1

This is still happening in 2018 and your answer was helpful. I wish this was fixed though... Happened in AS 3.1.1. – Airspeed 23/4, 2018 at 17:32

You are a life saver!! I was stuck on this for a day and tried everything from updating libraries to updating studio and cache clean restart but nothing helps. But your this solution still works after 4 years. – Impasto 29/4, 2018 at 7:38

AS 3.1.3 "Invalidate and Restart" did not help, but removing .idea folder and .iml files did – Dowdell 28/6, 2018 at 9:6

"Invalidate Caches/Restart" and "clean project" did not help, remove .idea folder worked. – Mobcap 16/7, 2018 at 6:16

In the first step, in place of closing the entire IDE I just closed the project instead. Then, kept all the other steps same and it still worked. I did so just to save some time. I'm on v3.1.3 on Android Studio. – Handel 6/8, 2018 at 3:24

Same here Android studio 3.1.4. This can drive you mad - Literally – Lanceted 20/9, 2018 at 10:59

Hit the Sync Project With Gradle Files button if you encounter any problem after this. – Hubsher 21/9, 2018 at 13:7

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None of the things mentioned earlier here did actually work for me. But then I found this menu entry in the file menu Invalidate Caches/Restart which appears to have fixed the problem.

I don't really know what happened in the background but when Android Studio started up again the status bar said Indexing... for a minute or so which apparently did wonders.

For reference I'm using Android Studio 0.5.4.

Amboceptor answered 7/4, 2014 at 0:1 Comment(10)

For me, I had a power failure when android studios 0.8.2 was loading and it will not recognise any of my java imports and everything was just red. This worked for me, thanks! – Shih 8/11, 2014 at 17:50

I am using android studio 1.0.2, when i opened my project, i was full of red errors. i solved it by android studio-->file-->invalidate chaches/restart. when my project restarted it worked..no red errors – Defector 28/1, 2015 at 6:52

For some reason the line compile files('libs/core.jar') was missing in my build.gradle in the root of the project. After adding it to the dependencies section and following your hint it worked. (Android Studio 1.5.1) – Buggs 23/12, 2015 at 18:36

This didn't work for me in 2.2 Preview 1. Any suggestion? – Richly 27/5, 2016 at 12:47

@osrl: Try reverting back to some stable update of Android studio.. These preview or Canary updates doesn't contains all the feature available.. – Jennefer 13/6, 2016 at 6:46

I am on 2.1.2 and this solved my situation. My computer froze and I had to manually power it of while A-Studio was running. This solution worked perfectly. – Radiomicrometer 1/7, 2016 at 16:42

Nope, doesn't work on Android Studio 2.2. Incapable of resolving basic symbols. – Gradus 7/7, 2016 at 17:58

I just upgraded Android Studio to 3.1. I see red lines everywhere (yet the program compiles and run successfully). However, invalidating/restarting cache does not remove my red lines. – Chil 31/3, 2018 at 18:8

I just opened up my unchanged project that was working fine the other day and also got these errors. This answer fixed it for me and should be the accepted one. I'm on Android Studio 3.2.1. – Byrle 14/4, 2019 at 13:55

After invalidate restart problem was still there. I had to close the project and open it again by go to destination folder not from the ''open recent'' option in the file menu (If the opened project after launch android studio is not the one which has the problem). Hope this will help for someone.This answer is the correct answer. – Kreiker 20/4, 2019 at 16:6

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240

You've already gone down the list of most things that would be helpful, but you could try:

Exit Android Studio
Back up your project
Delete all the .iml files and the .idea folder
Relaunch Android Studio and reimport your project