PhoneGap Build won't build for Android with PushPlugin

Question

We have a PhoneGap app which refuses to build once we add in PushPlugin.

Specifically when using PhoneGap Build we get the error:

BUILD FAILED
/home/ec2-user/android-sdk/tools/ant/build.xml:573: ../../../../../../home/ec2-user/android-sdk/com.android.support:support-v4:+ resolve to a path with no project.properties file for project /project

We can occasionally get it to build using the Ripple emulator (building in Visual Studio) after updating PhoneGap ($ npm update -g phonegap) and the PhoneGap Android Platform ($ phonegap platform update android) to the latest versions.

We have included the plugin like this:

<gap:plugin name="com.phonegap.plugins.pushplugin" /> 

Or, when building in Visual Studio 2015:

<vs:plugin name="com.phonegap.plugins.PushPlugin" version="2.5.0" src="https://github.com/phonegap-build/PushPlugin.git" xmlns:vs="http://schemas.microsoft.com/appx/2014/htmlapps" /> 

Can anyone suggest where we might be going wrong?

EDIT:

We’ve also tried building on the command line, but even after installing cordova-plugin-android-support-v4, thus;

$ cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-android-support-v4
    Fetching plugin "cordova-plugin-android-support-v4" via npm
    npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/cordova-plugin-android-support-v4
    npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/cordova-plugin-android-support-v4
    Installing "cordova-plugin-android-support-v4" for android

we still get errors:

C:\Dev\CordovaBlank\BlankCordovaApp1\BlankCordovaApp1>cordova build android
Running command: cmd "/s /c "C:\Dev\CordovaBlank\BlankCordovaApp1\BlankCordovaApp1\platforms\android\cordova\build.bat""
ANDROID_HOME=C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Android\sdk
JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files (x86)\java\jdk1.7.0_55
Running: C:\Dev\CordovaBlank\BlankCordovaApp1\BlankCordovaApp1\platforms\android\gradlew cdvBuildDebug -b C:\Dev\CordovaBlank\BlankCordovaApp1\BlankCordova
dle.daemon=true

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring root project 'android'.
> Could not resolve all dependencies for configuration ':_debugCompile'.
  > Could not find any version that matches com.android.support:support-v4:+.
     Searched in the following locations:
         https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/android/support/support-v4/maven-metadata.xml
         https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/android/support/support-v4/
     Required by:
         :android:unspecified

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 2.897 secs

C:\Dev\CordovaBlank\BlankCordovaApp1\BlankCordovaApp1\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:126
                    throw e;
                          ^
Error code 1 for command: cmd with args: /s /c "C:\Dev\CordovaBlank\BlankCordovaApp1\BlankCordovaApp1\platforms\android\gradlew cdvBuildDebug -b C:\Dev\Cor
latforms\android\build.gradle -Dorg.gradle.daemon=true"
ERROR building one of the platforms: Error: cmd: Command failed with exit code 1
You may not have the required environment or OS to build this project
Error: cmd: Command failed with exit code 1
    at ChildProcess.whenDone (C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\cordova\node_modules\cordova-lib\src\cordova\superspawn.js:134:23)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:110:17)
    at maybeClose (child_process.js:1015:16)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:1087:5)