Can't execute apkanalyzer

Question

I'm trying to run apkanalyzer from Android SDK tools from command line. However, it won't start and prints the following exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException: The tools directory property is not set, please make sure you are executing apkanalyzer. Got /home/user/Programs/android-sdk-linux/tools
    at com.android.tools.apk.analyzer.ApkAnalyzerCli.getAaptInvokerFromSdk(ApkAnalyzerCli.java:266)
    at com.android.tools.apk.analyzer.ApkAnalyzerCli.main(ApkAnalyzerCli.java:123)

My cmdline is:

~/Programs/android-sdk-linux$ tools/bin/apkanalyzer apk summary ~/projects/mservice.apk

ANDROID_SDK_ROOT is set.

Here is my installation (sdkmanager --list):

Installed packages:=====================] 100% Computing updates...             
  Path                 | Version | Description                    | Location             
  -------              | ------- | -------                        | -------              
  build-tools;28.0.3   | 28.0.3  | Android SDK Build-Tools 28.0.3 | build-tools/28.0.3/  
  build-tools;29.0.2   | 29.0.2  | Android SDK Build-Tools 29.0.2 | build-tools/29.0.2/  
  platform-tools       | 29.0.6  | Android SDK Platform-Tools     | platform-tools/      
  platforms;android-28 | 6       | Android SDK Platform 28        | platforms/android-28/
  platforms;android-29 | 4       | Android SDK Platform 29        | platforms/android-29/
  tools                | 1.0.0   | Android SDK Tools 1            | tools/               

What is wrong?

Answer 1

apkanalyzer expects to live in a different folder than it is actually in. This is the same error as with sdkmanager, also part of cmdline-tools. See this question: The solution is to move /path/to/cmdline-tools to /path/to/cmdline-tools/latest.

I found this by googling for The tools directory property is not set > https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/.../Main.java > com.android.sdkmanager.toolsdir > run sdkmanager > Error: Could not determine SDK root. > Failed to run sdkmanager --list with Java 9.