Apple Silicon Android Studio emulator: ERROR: can't find the emulator executable

Question

I just installed Android Studio 4.2.2 and Android Studio Preview (Arctic Fox Beta 5) to my Apple M1 Macbook.

When creating an emulator (arm64) I immediately receive the error:

AVD Manager: The emulator process for AVD Pixel_4a_API_30 has terminated

I then went to the log file of Android Studio (Help > Show log in Finder) and I see that the error occurs when Android Studio attempts to run the following:

~/Library/Android/sdk/emulator/emulator -netdelay none -netspeed full -no-snapshot-load -avd Pixel_4a_API_30

which outputs:

emulator: Android emulator version 30.3.5.0 (build_id 7036990) (CL:N/A)
emulator: ERROR: can't find the emulator executable.

Tried every possible solution I found online so far...

Answer 1

I had the same issue and found a simple solution after reading the README from the m1 emulator GitHub page.

If I'm right, what is happening is that you're trying to boot an image built for a different architecture. When selecting the image, you need to switch to the "Other Images" tab and look for an image with arm64-* stated in the ABI column. Everything else should work after.

Solution Steps

1. Open the AVD Manager and and click + Create Virtual Device
2. Select a device you want and click Next
3. Switch the tab to "Other Images" Android Studio Select Arm64 Virtual Device Image
4. Finish the creation process and run your app.