Could Not Resolve com.android.tools.build:gradle No Matching Variant

Question

My main goal was to create a new app, with just an Empty Activity: no bells nor whistles. However, after trying to be a good developer, and upgrade gradle, like the IDE said, everything went wrong.

Nothing would build anymore, it couldn't find my JDK, no matter where I put it, it couldn't edit the gradle dependency lock file: the whole nine. I managed to fix the JDK and gradle writing issue, by just moving everything, but I was then left with this last problem:

> No matching variant of com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1 was found. 
        The consumer was configured to find a runtime of a library compatible with Java 8,
        packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally, as well as
        attribute 'org.gradle.plugin.api-version' with value '7.5' but:

Now, this isn't the full error. The full error, is a collapsed wall of text. However, I can reduce it a little bit, since this error is kind of recursive:

It starts out by saying:

A problem occurred configuring root project 'app'.
> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':classpath'.
   > Could not resolve com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1.
     Required by:
         project : > com.android.application:com.android.application.gradle.plugin:7.4.1
         project : > com.android.library:com.android.library.gradle.plugin:7.4.1

After that it lists a couple of things that used gradle v.7.4.1 in a particular capacity, but then the original problem occurred.

It seems like it's trying to use 7.4.1, but keeps finding 7.5, but I don't understand the rest. Then a repetitive error was logged, and centralized around some key elements (or 'variants', as they were), those elements being:

1. 'apiElements'
2. 'javadocElements'
3. 'runtimeElements', and
4. 'sourcesElements'

For each one it said something like this:

- Variant <insert variant here> capability com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1 declares
            a library, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:

Then, for each one, it listed the..."reasons", why the "but:" had to be there, with the following being the parent reason:

 component compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a runtime of a component
 compatible with Java 8

which makes no sense to me, since I should be using Java...19, but maybe 19 is only the build version and not the advertised version (?) anyway...

The "other compatible attribute:" sub-reasons contained some of the following, which I will use the list numbers to simplify:

All variants had this one:

- Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '7.5')

and variants 2 and 4 had both of these:

- Doesn't say anything about its target Java version (required compatibility with Java 8)

- Doesn't say anything about its elements (required them packaged as a jar)

Now, I want to let you know that, yes, I did muck about with the settings at first, but when I found I wasn't making it any better, I uninstalled the entire IDE, including my user settings, and did a fresh download and installation of the newest version of the IDE. I checked the .android folder to find the .lib folder was gone, so maybe it worked (???), but I'm not sure, since it opened up an old project. I didn't remove any of the stuff that it wanted to see.

I'd like to use this image from another post here, which I also messed with in attempt to force it to use 7.5 by changing 7.4.1 to 7.5 and setting them to "true". It didn't work, so I put it back. Hopefully this was enough information to satisfy the original conditions:

1. I gave you what it was supposed to do (just compile: I'm not asking for much)
2. I gave you the error (gradle broke all the way)
3. I gave the shortest code (which there wasn't any...cuz it's a gradle issue)

Maybe it needs to move to a different sub-SO: I don't know, but I did my best here. Also if all above was completely abhorrent, I left most of the original error, untouched, down below. However, like I said, there is a more compressed version of this that goes even further but...I don't think you want 150+ lines of error to look at.

...

However, I can give you the top-level error:

org.gradle.api.ProjectConfigurationException: A problem occurred configuring root project 'app'

...which just says the same thing.

          - Variant 'apiElements' capability com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1 declares
            a library, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares an API of a component compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a runtime of a component compatible with Java 8
              - Other compatible attribute:
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '7.5')
          - Variant 'javadocElements' capability com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1 declares a runtime of a component, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares documentation and the consumer needed a library
              - Other compatible attributes:
                  - Doesn't say anything about its target Java version (required compatibility with Java 8)
                  - Doesn't say anything about its elements (required them packaged as a jar)
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '7.5')
          - Variant 'runtimeElements' capability com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1 declares a runtime of a library, packaged as a jar, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares a component compatible with Java 11 and the consumer needed a component compatible with Java 8
              - Other compatible attribute:
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '7.5')
          - Variant 'sourcesElements' capability com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.1 declares a runtime of a component, and its dependencies declared externally:
              - Incompatible because this component declares documentation and the consumer needed a library
              - Other compatible attributes:
                  - Doesn't say anything about its target Java version (required compatibility with Java 8)
                  - Doesn't say anything about its elements (required them packaged as a jar)
                  - Doesn't say anything about org.gradle.plugin.api-version (required '7.5')

Answer 1

In AndroidStudio Flamingo 2022.2.1 I opened the File -> Settings menu, then I selected

Build, Execution, Deployment
  Build Tools
    Gradle

I selected my current project and in the "Gradle JDK" field I selected "Embedded JDK" (which happens to be v17.0.6). Closed the settings with OK, then clicked on "Try again" in the Gradle sync failure notice.