Android plugin is too old (2.4.0-alpha7)

Question

I'm using android studio 2.4, And getting this error. Apparently I have to update my android plugin, but when I checked jcenter for new versions the only version available was 2.5.0-alpha-preview-02. which would cause the exact same error. I also see somewhere in the error message that it says I must replace the ANDROID_DAILY_OVERRIDE environment variable. But I really have no idea where to put this environment variable? Should it go to local.properties or is it an OS env variable? I was wondering if anybody else is facing this problem.

This is the full message

Error:(1, 0) The android gradle plugin version 2.5.0-alpha-preview-02 is too old, please update to the latest version.
To override this check from the command line please set the ANDROID_DAILY_OVERRIDE environment variable to "8d256f619ba96afd1273947e8b8bebea4cb2fd05"
<a href="fixGradleElements">Upgrade plugin to version 2.4.0-alpha7 and sync project</a><br><a 
href="openFile:C:/Users/hshahdoost/MyWork/BAmooz/Android/build.gradle">Open File</a>

Answer 1

There is a 40 day limit for beta/alpha versions and after that, Android Studio forces you to update to the latest version.

But it doesn't exist (the newest is the alpha with AS 3.0) so a possible solution is setting that environment variable, executing in the command line (in MAC):

launchctl setenv ANDROID_DAILY_OVERRIDE 8d256f619ba96afd1273947e8b8bebea4cb2fd05

And relaunch Android Studio

Answer 2

On Windows it can be fixed by adding OS (or local user) environment variable with key "ANDROID_DAILY_OVERRIDE" and value "8d256f619ba96afd1273947e8b8bebea4cb2fd05" and restart Android Studio after that. After migrating to Android Studio 3.x it's better to remove this anvironment variable back.