cordova ubuntu: An error occurred while listing Android targets

Question

I'm trying add the android platform to my cordova project, though I get the error:

$ cordova platform add android -d
cordova library for "android" already exists. No need to download. Continuing.
Checking if platform "android" passes minimum requirements...
Checking Android requirements...
cordova library for "android" already exists. No need to download. Continuing.
Error: An error occurred while listing Android targets
    at /home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/lib/check_reqs.js:83:29
    at _rejected (/home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:808:24)
    at /home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:834:30
    at Promise.when (/home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:1079:31)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:752:41)
    at /home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:574:44
    at flush (/home/jasonshark/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.2.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:108:17)
    at process._tickCallback (node.js:415:13)

Without the -d it will be:

Checking Android requirements...
[Error: An error occurred while listing Android targets]

I'm not sure what configuration I am missing. In my ~/.bashrc file I have:

### Java
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386

export ANDROID_HOME=~/Code/adt-bundle-linux-x86-20131030/sdk/tools
export ANDROID_PLATFORM_TOOLS=~/Code/adt-bundle-linux-x86-20131030/sdk/platform-tools
export PATH=$ANDROID_HOME:$ANDROID_PLATFORM_TOOLS:$PATH 

and I have ant installed:

$ ant -version
Apache Ant(TM) version 1.8.2 compiled on December 3 2011

What's missing? Why do i get the error An error occurred while listing Android targets when trying to add the android platform to the cordova project?

Answer 1

Cordova has a script to check if all dependencies are present. Is is called when you run cordova platform add android but unfortunatly it's output is not displayed when it fails.

You can try to run it manually, it should be $home/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/check_reqs

The normal output when everything's fine is "Looks like your environment fully supports cordova-android development!", oterwise it should display a clear message about what's missing.

Maybe your issue is that you havent't installed SDK platform for API 19 in android sdk manager (cordova 3.3 or 3.5 uses target sdk 19).

Update: Cordova 3.3 or 3.5 works on SDK 19 only (Android 4.4.2). The error logs does not mention clearly what platform version it is looking for. Typically error messages are:

Unable to add platform android. Please see console for more info.

or

[Error: An error occurred while listing Android targets]

This can also happen when android (sdk/tools) is not in path. I would have loved if the check-script have printed correct error message. BTW, created a PR for them.

Answer 2

in .bashrc try adding

export ANT_HOME="/usr/bin/ant"
export PATH="$PATH:$ANT_HOME/bin"
export HOME="/home/username"
export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/android-bundle/sdk/tools"
export ANDROID_PLATFORM_TOOLS="$HOME/android-bundle/sdk/platform-tools"
export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME:$ANDROID_PLATFORM_TOOLS:$PATH"

or try explicitly define the paths globally.

from the terminal I type:

export PATH=${PATH}:~/dev/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20140321/sdk/tools
export PATH=${PATH}:~/dev/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20140321/sdk/platform-tools

(rememebr to replace with your own sdk path)

If this doesn't work, try updating the sdk