Impossible to rotate the emulator with android 4.4

Question

I've updated my sdk to the latest version (android 4.4) and I started the emulator, but now it seems not possible to rotate the screen with CTRL+F11, the screen change but all the applications don't change. I don't know if it's a related issue but I can see that even if I created a new emulator with menù hw button, now all the applications have the overflow button.

score 59 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 01 '13 at 12:47

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These appear to be bugs in the Android 4.4 emulator. You may wish to track the issues that I filed regarding the orientation change bug and the overflow affordance bug.

Thanks for pointing these out!

answered Nov 01 '13 at 12:47

CommonsWare

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And the new runtime compiler ART breaks the emulator, too: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/new-runtime-compiler-in-android-4-4/ – mreichelt Nov 01 '13 at 12:51
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@mreichelt: Well, that's something you have to specifically enable in the emulator and is not part of normal Android app development today, the way orientation changes and the overflow are. That being said, thanks for pointing this out, if for no other reason than helping to explain who Art is that I have seen mentioned in various tweets. :-) – CommonsWare Nov 01 '13 at 13:19
It seems there are a lot of bugs in the SDK. You can see for example: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19725265/license-error-with-android-4-4-emulator. In addition if I open the map (Google map api v2) in my application then it crashes with segmentation fault. But my apps works perfectly on my device and on 4.3 emulator. Google what are you doing? – greywolf82 Nov 01 '13 at 14:44
Can confirm the rotation problem faced it today too, also the ART bug. – Rolf ツ Nov 02 '13 at 19:08
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Yeah, found out in the first five minutes ('cause that's how long it takes to load the 4.4. KitKat emulator on my PC) that **screen orientation** using Ctrl+F11 and the emulator's **Menu** button **don't work**. Shame on Google to have missed these bugs during testing... – ChuongPham Nov 29 '13 at 17:41
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This also happens with the L Developer Preview emulator. – IgorGanapolsky Jul 03 '14 at 18:35
@CommonsWare, https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=61671#c26 says "**Fixed** in api 22". – Pacerier Jul 01 '15 at 09:44

VM4 · Answer 2 · 2015-03-02T12:44:42.163

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There appears to be a bug in the emulator as described by CommonsWare, however, if you desperately need to debug an app in landscape mode on the 4.4 emulator you can:

Start the Camera app on the emulator which will rotate the screen.
Now exit the app, the home screen should now be sideways.
Pressing Ctrl + F11 will do the trick. (Ctrl + fn + F11 on mac).

edited Mar 02 '15 at 12:44

answered Jan 16 '14 at 20:00

VM4

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Worked like a charm ! Rotated first then hit the camera app – NathofGod Jun 30 '14 at 20:05
Brilliant ... but shame on Android with so much glitches. – Solostaran14 Sep 16 '14 at 13:09
Camera app won't start on my nexus 10 avd, so I can't try this trick. *sadface* – Synesso Nov 20 '14 at 22:34
You can also do this with the Google Calendar app. – Abhishek Mar 10 '15 at 11:46
@VM4, How did you found this out? – Pacerier Jul 01 '15 at 09:44
@Pacerier: by accident. – VM4 Jul 01 '15 at 19:55

score 13 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 17 '14 at 16:50

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Until it is fixed I use this free application "Set Orientation". Install the apk into emulator using adb install.

answered Feb 17 '14 at 16:50

vldmrrr

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How did you grab the apk? – IgorGanapolsky Jul 03 '14 at 18:37
@IgorGanapolsky, on the market no ? – Snicolas Jul 07 '14 at 13:41
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Yea but how do you install it on the emulator? – IgorGanapolsky Jul 07 '14 at 14:44
@IgorGanapolsky, download apk from market or another site and install it to emulator using following command: adb install Orientation_Control_1.4.apk – Alexey Prokhorov Jul 11 '14 at 03:20
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Dude, Google Play doesn't give you standalone APKs. – IgorGanapolsky Jul 11 '14 at 12:15
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Install application from market on rooted device, then pull apk file with:`adb pull /data/app/com.googlecode.eyesfree.setorientation-1.apk`. Install to emulator with `adb install` – vldmrrr Jul 16 '14 at 21:21
This realy saved my hours. – peacepassion Apr 05 '15 at 01:45
@vldmrrr, Since it's not official, wouldn't you get viruses this way? – Pacerier Jul 01 '15 at 09:45

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 14 '13 at 15:16

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I have found that this bug depends on which device type I select for the virtual-machine. If I set the device type as a "Nexus 7", it won't allow rotations. But if I set the device type as a generic 7" tablet, with all of the same options, rotations will work fine.

answered Nov 14 '13 at 15:16

genixpro

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So, it's still a bug. – ChuongPham Nov 29 '13 at 17:43
I don't notice any difference. For me, the only different in using the 7" tablet device is that it defaults to landscape. Otherwise, it has the same behavior as phone devices: the window will physically rotate, but the layout doesn't adjust. – Edward Brey Dec 11 '13 at 18:13
This worked for me, finally. Took me hours googling. I've tried 4.4.2, 4.3.1, 4.1.2 system images with no avail. Using idea on ubuntu 14.04. – Will Dec 28 '14 at 13:26

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 09 '14 at 12:00

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In manifestfile.xml can put android:screenOrientation="landscape". When it has been Loaded you will see every app in landscape mode

answered Jun 09 '14 at 12:00

ivanrove

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Thanks for the tip. I'm using the suggestion of vldmrr above to do the test and it's ok as workaround. – greywolf82 Jun 09 '14 at 18:06

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 02 '14 at 20:41

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There is a work around for this. It seems the settings from the GUI isn't saved to the ini files. I had to manually edit fields "hw.keyboard=no" in both config.ini & hardware-qemu.ini within your avd directory.

answered Jul 02 '14 at 20:41

idwebmedia

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Why does the hw.keyboard setting have an effect? – IgorGanapolsky Jul 03 '14 at 18:39
I have no idea but it does for some reason. When I first created my custom avd everything worked fine as I had all nonessential options disabled. When I went back to edit it later I noticed once I turned it on it changed the orientation of the OS screen not the device. i was still in portrait but the interface was in landscape vertical. That's when I noticed my changes in the GUI weren't being applied to the ini files. I'm not sure if both need to be changed but I did it to them anyways and it reverted back to normal. – idwebmedia Jul 03 '14 at 20:18

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 30 '14 at 02:54

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As a workaround, I cloned the device, swapped the width/height in the clone and unchecked portrait. Then launched my avd based on the cloned landscape version. Maybe that could work for you?

answered Jan 30 '14 at 02:54

robiculous

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What if you want to do an onConfigurationChange test to also test how onSaveInstanceState and onrRestoreInstanceState methods are working? Of course with your solution you can test the layouts written for different orientation for the same fragment or activity.. – Abhinav Saxena May 07 '14 at 13:05

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 02 '15 at 03:35

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I ran into the same issue when using the emulator running Android 5.0.1. However, I was able to resolve by using the emulator with Intel x86 Atom system image instead of the Intel x86 Atom_64 system image.

answered Mar 02 '15 at 03:35

Julio Feferman

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sjain · Answer 9 · 2014-08-21T15:22:09.620

I have found a solution to this problem -

Create emulator with whatever setting you want but set the Target to be less then Android 4.4.

For example -

I set it to the following -->

enter image description here

NOTE:

Because I want to use Android 4.4 with Google Maps API so I used Android 4.2.2 with Google Maps API here.

After creating the AVD, start it and lets get it started completely.
Now come back to this AVD and edit it. Here you set the Target to Android 4.4 with Google Maps API.

For example -

I set it to the following -->

enter image description here

Now start the application and rotate any way you want. It worked great!

Impossible to rotate the emulator with android 4.4

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