Basic Fail on Tutorial with briefcase run android

[jmdodd95682]

Okay. I know this has probably come up a lot, and I know everyone is busy. But I'm kind of stuck. I have an old version of an App running on my Android phone using beeware. Works great, and all I'm trying to do is upgrade the code a little. I've has a heck of time doing this. After days spent failing to be able to run the update android app in emulator (I using Windows 11 for my beeware environment with Python3.11.9). I decided to do a clean sweep. Reinstalled everything from scratch (Git, briefcase etc.). I deleted the old .gradle and .android directories and walked through the tutorial just to see if I could get that running on the android emulator.

Nope. Everything works great until I try to do "briefcase run android". It runs in briefcase dev, it runs as a packaged Windows App. This is just the Beeware Tutorial Code. It grinds along and just when its booted the emulator I get this error message:

Running Command:
    'C:\Users\jmdod\AppData\Local\BeeWare\briefcase\Cache\tools\android_sdk\platform-tools\adb.exe' -s emulator-5554 install -r 'C:\Users\jmdod\beeware-tutorial\recircpump2\build\recircpump2\android\gradle\app\build\outputs\apk\debug\app-debug.apk'
Command Output:
    adb: failed to install C:\Users\jmdod\beeware-tutorial\recircpump2\build\recircpump2\android\gradle\app\build\outputs\apk\debug\app-debug.apk: Performing Streamed Install
Return code: 1

Installing new app version... errored

Unable to install APK C:\Users\jmdod\beeware-tutorial\recircpump2\build\recircpump2\android\gradle\app\build\outputs\apk\debug\app-debug.apk on emulator-5554

Log saved to C:\Users\jmdod\beeware-tutorial\recircpump2\logs\briefcase.2025_04_18-09_31_01.run.log

I renamed the tutorial app to recircpump2 instead of HelloWorld so I could then just dump my code in and recompile.

So. My question is: Is there a log I can look at to see why adb failed to install my app on the emulator? Is there anything I can easily do to debug this? I really need this this app to work, or I'm going to have to rearchitect my app which will be painful.

[rmartin16]

The log file that Briefcase created may contain more information about the error. If you upload here, we can take a look.

Otherwise, I would recommend ensuring the app is not currently installed on the emulator; if it is, uninstall it and try again.

[jmdodd95682]

Thanks. I only noticed the path to the logfile after I posted. :-)

briefcase.2025_04_18-09_31_01.run.log

I have attached the logfile.

There was no old copy of the app installed. It is a fresh emulator. I deleted the existing emulators just to be sure.

[rmartin16]

Thanks; unfortunately, the log does not contain more information.

Can you take a look at Malcolm's links in this comment? That may provide more information about why the install is failing.

[jmdodd95682]

Looking at the log (attached above), it seems like the python library module subprocess is being called (though a series of calls from self.run("install", "-r", apk_path) ) and raises an Error on the result of running the subprocess:

C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.11_3.11.2544.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\Lib\subprocess.py:571 in run │
│ │
│ 568 │ │ │ raise │
│ 569 │ │ retcode = process.poll() │
│ 570 │ │ if check and retcode: │
│ ❱ 571 │ │ │ raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args, │
│ 572 │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ output=stdout, stderr=stderr) │
│ 573 │ return CompletedProcess(process.args, retcode, stdout, stderr) │
│ 574

and the local variables for this function are:

│ │ capture_output = False │ │
│ │ check = True │ │
│ │ input = None │ │
│ │ kwargs = {'stdout': -1, 'stderr': -2, 'text': True, 'encoding': 'cp437', 'errors': 'backslashreplace'} │ │
│ │ popenargs = ( │ │
│ │ │ [ │ │
│ │ │ │ 'C:\Users\jmdod\AppData\Local\BeeWare\briefcase\Cache\tools\android_sdk\platform-'+13, │ │
│ │ │ │ '-s', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'emulator-5554', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'install', │ │
│ │ │ │ '-r', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'C:\Users\jmdod\beeware-tutorial\recircpump2\build\recircpump2\android\gradle\app'+38 │ │
│ │ │ ], │ │
│ │ ) │ │
│ │ process = <Popen: returncode: 1 args: ['C:\Users\jmdod\AppData\Local\BeeWare\bri...> │ │
│ │ retcode = 1 │ │
│ │ stderr = None │ │
│ │ stdout = 'adb: failed to install C:\Users\jmdod\beeware-tutorial\recircpump2\build\recircp'+91 │

Clearly the installation of the application failed, but we already knew that. So, we're back to square one. But, you probably know a lot more about how to extract info from this log than I do.

[jmdodd95682]

I was able to make it work if I kept retrying "briefcase run android" on an already running emulator. It works about 1 time in 5. I don't know what the difference is. I guess something is hanging or taking too long and timing out. I'm running it on a laptop, but I've never had any performance issues like this before. Anyway, at least I can get it running enough perhaps to debug it.

[mhsmith]

I'm not sure why adb isn't saying why it failed to install, but the explanation can often be found in the logs on the device itself, which you can view using Android Studio or adb logcat.