Installation error: Unknown failure Android App

Question

I have just installed the Android ADT bundle with the Eclipse IDE.

I have created a Android phone Simulator and I am trying to install and run my first application on it.

Here's what I see in the Console log

Android Launch!
adb is running normally.
Performing com.example.outlast.MainActivity11 activity launch
Automatic Target Mode: Unable to detect device compatibility. Please select a target device.
Uploading Outlast.apk onto device 'emulator-5554'
Installing Outlast.apk...
Installation error: Unknown failure
Please check logcat output for more details.
Launch canceled!

The application that I am trying to install is almost blank. I have just created a project with a blank activity and I am trying to run it. It is supposed to run according to to the official Android developers page.

I dont know how to look in the logcat output.

How can I solve this problem ?

Answer 1

I have finally resolved my problem.

I was unable to install any application on the android phone simulator because I had not waited long enough for the Android phone to load, so Eclipse couldn't install anything on the simulator.

Answer 2

Same issue might also happen if you install the application some time back and now you are trying to install from another PC or sometime same PC.

Even though you have un-installed before installing new app, System maintain some data related to application. To overcome this completly unstall the application by using abd command.

adb uninstall my.package.id

Please refer another root cause for same issue. This helped me a lot after spending 5hrs of my time.

Eclipse simply says that "Installation error: Unknown failure" it does not give info on reason for fail in console window

To see what is the error message, install apk via adb command

> adb install app.apk

Then we can see the error message as "Failed to install app.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE: Package com.myapp.id do not match the previously installed version; ignoring!]"

This helps to understand the issue.