Android emulator shows nothing except black screen and adb devices shows “device offline”

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I am just trying to start development in Android.
So, the problem is that when I try to launch an emulator by issuing the command emulator @A2 , an emulator comes up on the screen. But even after waiting for as long as 2-3 hrs, all it shows is a black screen. Not even the android home screen or the android logo. Just a black screen. And while initially “adb devices” shows the emulator as offline.after 2-3 minutes the list of attached devices becomes blank.

I searched all over net and tried all the steps mentioned there like kill and restart adb, install java/android in a directory without spaces, but to no avail.

My Jdk and Android installations are in following folders:

C:\Java32BitInstallation
C:\AndroidSdkInstallation
Here’s the list of stuff I have downloaded/installed for it:

  1. Android SDK Tools, revision 13
  2. Android SDK platforms tools, revision 10
  3. SDK platform Android 4.0.3, API 15, revsion 1
  4. Jdk jdk-7u3-windows-i586

In my path variable, I have added *C:\AndroidSdkInstallation\android-sdk\platform-tools\;C:\AndroidSdkInstallation\android-sdk\tools\;C:\Java32BitInstallation\;C:\Java32BitInstallation\bin*

Also after reading somewhere from net I have added JAVA_HOME variable with its value as C:\Java32BitInstallation\ But still no use.

I have both IntelliJ and Eclipse installed on my system. But since for starting the emulator, I am not using any of these, I dont suspect any foulplay with these.

So, can anyone please help me with this stuff that’s driving me crazy. I am trying for past 10-12 days and have not been able to start the emulator, let alone write my first “Hello world” program.

Additional notes:
My system is a windows 7 (64 bit) machine. Earlier I had installed 64 bit version of jdk, but the problem was present that time too. Now after searcching on internet, I uninstalled that and installed 32 bit version of Java. But, again no use. One thing, though, this 32 bit version of java (jdk 7 update 3), first install jre as part of jdk installation and then installs jre 7 . So now I have 2 folders: jre and jre7 in the C:\Java32BitInstallation directory. Could this have to do anthing with my emulator not turning up. Do I need to specify aditional environmetal variables or modify the existing one? Kindly help.

BTW, did I mention the logcat shows nothing.

33 Answers
33

Update 25.07.2018:

The latest Android Studio version does not have this option anymore.
If the problem persists try to switch between the values of the “Emulated Performance” dropdown in the Verify Configuration dialogue (if available) or refer to the Configure Emulator graphics rendering and hardware acceleration.

Update 26.02.2014:

There are two hints in the Configuring Graphics Acceleration chapter from developer.android.com.

Caution: As of SDK Tools Revision 17, the graphics acceleration feature for the emulator is experimental; be alert for incompatibilities and errors when using this feature.

and

Start the AVD Manager and create a new AVD with the Target value of Android 4.0.3 (API Level 15), revision 3 or higher.

So Android 4.0.3 (API Level 15) seems to be the minimum requirement for graphics acceleration.

Original answer

I have had the same issue with the latest Android SDK.

I simply deactivated the checkbox “Use Host GPU” within the settings of the virtual device and it started working again.

The “Use Host GPU” does only work for me with Android 4.2 as “Target”.

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