Android Studio HAXM update issues

Question

Android Studio 2.1.3

I can't seem to update HAXM. Every time I open the AVD, it gives me the following error message:

Virtual machine acceleration driver out-of-date

It then gives me a button to "Reinstall Haxm". Clicking that leads to an installation screen where I can choose the RAM allocation, where I hit Next and it starts installing. I then see it start installing and an extracting dialog flash up and disappear immediately:

It then finishes and says it was updated successfully, but then I hit Finish and it wants me to update again.

I've ensured Hyper-V isn't enabled and that virtualization is enabled in the BIOS. I've also tried installing it manually, and that looks like it all works successfully. And yet, no change in behavior by Android Studio. I have also seen this solution and tried it, with no success.

I can run the ARM EABI v7a emulators; just not the x86 ones. The ARM ones are so slow they're almost unusable, so I'd really like to find a way to fix this!

This machine does have VMWare vSphere installed on it, which is used on a regular basis. Could that be why this is happening?

Answer 1

First a warning. If you have a really old version of HAXM installed, follow their instructions to uninstall the old version before installing the new one.

Before installing latest HAXM, the previous versions from 1.1.4 and below must be uninstalled using: sudo /System/Library/Extensions/intelhaxm.kext/Contents/Resources/uninstall.sh

The Intel HAXM installation instructions are confusing and outdated, but this part is correct:

once you have installed the package, the status will appear as ‘Installed’, which is misleading as this is not the case. The SDK only copies the Intel HAXM executable on your machine, and it is up to you to install the executable.

I'm using Android Studio 3.0.1 on a Mac (10.11 El Capitan) and have not seem a "Reinstall HAXM" button like you described, but when an emulator is launched I do see this in the Event Log:

Emulator: WARNING: HAXM 6.0.5 is installed. Please install HAXM >= 6.2.1 to fix compatibility issues on Mac.

In SDK Manager -> SDK Tools it says the Intel X86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM installer) is version 6.2.1. I have updated it via the SDK Manager from previous versions several times in the past but didn't realize the update was not complete.

Solution on Windows: Find the IntelHAXM.exe file and run it. It might be at C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\extras\Intel\Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager\IntelHaxm.exe

Solution on Mac: Find the .dmg file, open it, and double-click on the .mpkg file inside to start the actual installation. It will say the software is already installed. Press OK -> Continue -> Install to "re-install" it (meaning actually to install the newer version).

In my case the .dmg file was found at Users/{username}/Library/Android/sdk/extras/intel/Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager/IntelHAXM_6.2.1.dmg