Error: Could not find gradle wrapper within Android SDK. Might need to update your Android SDK - Android

I know there are lots of questions similiar to this one, but i couldn't find a solution for my problem in any of those. Besides, I'll provide details for my specific case.

I coded an Ionic project in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, and now I have to build it for release. So I run the command:

cordova build --release android

And I'm shown the following error:

Error: Could not find gradle wrapper within Android SDK. Might need to update your Android SDK.
Looked here: /home/user/Android/Sdk/tools/templates/gradle/wrapper
  • I don't have this templates/gradle/wrapper directory.
  • My Android Studio is 2.3, the latest version for now
  • Android SDK Platform-Tools 25.0.3
  • Android SDK Tools 25.3.1
  • All Android versions from 2.1 (Eclair) to 7.1.1 (Nougat)

After extensive research, I put all the Android Studio-related environment variables in the file /etc/environment. So now it looks like this:

PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/game:/home/<user>/Android/Sdk:/home/<user>/Android/Sdk/tools:/home/<user>/Android/Sdk/platform-tools"

ANDROID_HOME=/home/<user>/Android/Sdk
export ANDROID_HOME

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle
export JAVA_HOME

GRADLE_HOME=/opt/android-studio/gradle/gradle-3.2
export GRADLE_HOME

Now, for the sake of testing the environment variables, I run the following commands:

source /etc/environment
echo $PATH
echo $ANDROID_HOME
echo $JAVA_HOME
echo $GRADLE_HOME

And all the path variables are correctly displayed.

So, it looks like the environment variables are like they should be according to the various similar questions and in tutorials i've searched. Does anyone know what am I doing wrong? Why do I still get the Gradle Wrapper error?


Edit 3:

Cordova Android 6.2.2 has been released and it's fully compatible with SDK tools 26.0.x and 25.3.1. Use this version:

cordova platform update [email protected]

or

cordova platform rm android
cordova platform add [email protected]

Edit 2:

There has been another Android SDK tools release (26.0.x) that is not fully compatible with cordova-android 6.2.1.

Edit: Cordova Android 6.2.1 has been released and it's now compatible with latest Android SDK.

You can update your current incompatible android platform with cordova platform update [email protected]

Or you can remove the existing platform and add the new one (will delete any manual change you did inside yourProject/platforms/android/ folder)

cordova platform rm android cordova platform add [email protected]

You have to specify the version because current CLI installs 6.1.x by default.

Old answer:

Sadly Android SDK tools 25.3.1 broke cordova-android 6.1.x

For those who don't want to downgrade the SDK tools, you can install cordova-android from github url as most of the problems are already fixed on master branch.

cordova platform add https://github.com/apache/cordova-android


I just experienced the same problem.

It may be an occlusion in the instructions regarding how to install (or upgrade) Android Studio with all the SDK Tools which both you and I missed or possibly a bug created by a new release of Studio which does not follow the same file conventions as the older versions. I lean towards the latter since many of the SO posts on this topic seems to point to an ANDROID_PATH with a folder called android-sdk which does not appear in the latest (2.3.0.8) version.

There appears to be a workaround though, which I just got to work on my machine. Here's what I did:

  • Download tools_r25.2.3-windows.zip from Android Downloads.

  • Extracted zip on desktop

  • Replaced C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\tools with extracted sub-folder tools/

  • In project folder:

    $ cordova platforms remove android
    $ cordova platforms add android

You may also need to force remove the node_modules in android. Hopefully this helps.


(Basically what @user3464070 already said)

For Mac:

cd ~/Library/Android/sdk
# download latest tools
curl -O https://dl.google.com/android/repository/tools_r25.2.3-macosx.zip
# overwrite existing tools folder without prompting
unzip -o tools_r25.2.3-macosx.zip
# clean up
rm tools_r25.2.3-macosx.zip

  1. If you have android studio installed within your system, then copy the templates folder from C:\Program Files\Android\Android Studio\plugins\android\lib\templates
  2. Paste it in the folder C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\tools
  3. Run the command: ionic build android

All necessary jar files will be downloaded and apk file for the application will be generated.

Note: Set environment variables to C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\tools. Also set user-name to your current username.