Android Studio : emulator is already running

Question

I am trying to run emulator on my android studio 8.14. When I click run it says it is already running. Any help would be appreciated.

AVD api21 is already running.

If that is not the case, delete the files at /home/sayem/.android/avd/api21.avd/*.lock and try again

image containing the error written out above

have you try remove lock file at given location and try again. — Haresh Chhelana, Nov 19 '14 at 10:54
thanks.. i removed file at given location but it removes my existing emulator. — Sayem, Nov 19 '14 at 10:57
Please see this page http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31763470/android-studio-cannot-find-the-visual-studio-emulator — MohammadReza Moradi, Feb 14 '17 at 20:34

BSMP · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-14T14:23:59.730

213

You don't have to completely delete the emulator when this happens. The files to delete should have a ".lock" extension:

Screenshot of files for an AVD. The first three files appear as file folders in Windows 7 and have '.lock' at the end of their file names.

You don't need to touch the configuration files.

You can easily find the files location by clicking on the arrow under the Actions tab (in the ADB manager), and selecting "Show on Disk".

edited Apr 14 '18 at 14:23

answered Jun 24 '15 at 16:21

BSMP

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I have the same problem. I tried doing this, but it won't let me because it says that the files are currently in use. What should I do? – qwerty May 20 '20 at 20:54
I thought i just need to delete *.lock file, but it also required to delete *.lock folder. – Yohanim Jul 14 '20 at 07:27
@ap Was Android Studio still running? You might try quitting the application first. – BSMP Dec 10 '20 at 18:52
Deleting all the .lock files and restarting the Emulator is what worked form me – chobela Dec 27 '21 at 09:10
On Windows, this is the only sureshot method (https://stackoverflow.com/a/62676806/2632842) and does not require clearing cache, restarting Studio, rebooting Windows and other such things. – zehawk Apr 22 '22 at 08:58
Nice, had deleted the files but didnt notice the folder also was *.lock lol – Second2None May 04 '22 at 03:04
Just remove all *.lock files under the emulator folder. – android iPhone May 26 '22 at 13:40

score 63 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 19 '17 at 02:55

63

This worked for me:

Go to AVD Manager and click on the down-arrow on the right and click Stop. This stops the emulator and you can re-run it.

answered Sep 19 '17 at 02:55

BigDreamz

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Most precise answer here because, if we try to delete the *.lock folder, it may simply be denied while this work at first attmpt. – JorgeAmVF Apr 10 '19 at 21:13
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This worked for me. I was unable to delete the *.lock files it was telling me to delete since "they were in use". So clicking Stop allowed me to delete the AVD. – Alexiz Hernandez Aug 29 '19 at 04:44
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"Most precise answer here because" probably for you. That did nothing in my case – Farid Feb 19 '21 at 17:50
Thanks, It worked. No need to delete files. @Farid In case the delete button was disabled, I changed the Graphics to "automatic" and "stop" button enabled. – Ehsan Shadi Sep 25 '21 at 07:15
I have to "Stop" action there. – jave.web Mar 18 '22 at 13:03

score 49 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 04 '20 at 03:29

49

Go to the down arrow and click on the "Show on Disk" link like attached image. You will get the list of all files, remove the file "hardware-qemu.ini.lock" and start again.

It works for me hope it will work for you too.

answered Sep 04 '20 at 03:29

Rahul Mishra

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may also need to be deleted in "multiinstance.lock" – Burak Odabaş Jan 15 '22 at 22:53
although it allows startup, before the device opens I get "...was terminated", even if I delete `multiinstance.lock` too I had to also delte `snapshot.lock.lock` then device started, but please note this **does not** kill the hanging process of the original device. That can be done with `adb kill-server` - I suggest running that first – jave.web Mar 18 '22 at 13:07
If .lock files are in use, end the **qemu-system-i386.exe** process first, then delete the .lock files. – andreszs Nov 15 '22 at 12:10

score 19 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 28 '19 at 12:25

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There are so many answer but i just extending to give answer of this question. What happen is when i follow Android Studio instruction and try to delete that folder Or file but i am not able to delete it, So what am i do is that i open the AVD Manager and click on down arrow which is on right side as you can see in below screenshot and click on stop after click on start and its working fine. There is no need to restart or recreate the AVD.

edited Aug 28 '19 at 12:25

Joker

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answered Nov 28 '17 at 13:53

Ninja

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I have the same issue, but when I click "stop", nothing happens. – qwerty May 20 '20 at 20:55
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I do not have the "stop" there at all. – jave.web Mar 18 '22 at 13:05

score 18 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 08 '17 at 06:40

18

Follow the instructions on the error and go to your C:\Users\directory\.android\avd/Nexus_5_API_24.avd/*.lock and delete all files with the .lock extension and it should work.

answered Jun 08 '17 at 06:40

Zack

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This is better then other answers (y) – Mohammad Arif Oct 09 '21 at 08:20

score 11 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 15 '19 at 15:45

11

I restarted the computer and it worked for me!

answered Dec 15 '19 at 15:45

joekevinrayan96

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Nothing else worked for me. Restart is always a good idea! – F.Mysir Oct 25 '21 at 11:40

score 11 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 09 '22 at 18:51

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When I was trying to delete multiinstance.lock it says

So, I opened Window's task manager and selected qemu-system-x86_64.exe and press End task

answered Mar 09 '22 at 18:51

Jitendra

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This is what i had to do. – John Oct 13 '22 at 18:37

Abd Abughazaleh · Answer 8 · 2020-11-01T13:43:23.130

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This working for me :

Invalidate chaches/ restart

Go to

1 - File

2 - Select Invalidate Cahes / Restart

edited Nov 01 '20 at 13:43

answered Jul 26 '20 at 12:44

Abd Abughazaleh

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score 5 · Answer 9 · answered May 16 '22 at 11:07

5

Use this for killing all emulator processes.

adb emu kill

answered May 16 '22 at 11:07

Rasoul Miri

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score 4 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 18 '18 at 10:25

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C:\Users\admin.android\avd\Nexus_5X_API_26.avd follow path and delete hardware-qemu.ini.lock this folder. make sure your problem can be solve :)

answered Jul 18 '18 at 10:25

Naresh Prajapati

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This doesn't seem to add anything to the already accepted answer. It also assumes the specific emulator being used – chrisis Jul 18 '18 at 10:52
this worked. This should be the accepted answer as of Android Studio 3.+ – ralphgabb Jun 05 '19 at 23:21

score 4 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 01 '20 at 12:25

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Find and open the pid folder within your *.lock folder. Inside should be a number.

Kill pid:

Windows

taskkill /F /PID pid_number

answered Jul 01 '20 at 12:25

bg9848

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On Windows, this is the most elegant, sureshot method and does not require clearing cache, restarting Studio, rebooting Windows and other such things as mentioned in other answers. – zehawk Apr 22 '22 at 09:02

score 4 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 09 '21 at 07:16

4

Go to (Windows)

C:\Users\directory.android\avd/Nexus_5X_API_26.avd

Or (Ubuntu)

~/.android/avd/name.avd/Nexus_5X_API_26.avd

and delete all files of with .lock extensions.

answered Mar 09 '21 at 07:16

MD Jahid Hasan

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score 3 · Answer 13 · answered Nov 19 '14 at 11:05

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Thanks everyone.

I removed files of given location. but when I refresh the AVD manager, Existing emulator are all gone.

I recreated new emulator. Now it works fine.

answered Nov 19 '14 at 11:05

Sayem

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Divakar Rajesh · Answer 14 · 2019-05-14T07:33:55.793

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When you go to the specified location and try to delete those files sometimes you might get an error stating that the file or folder is already open or is used by another application

So the simple Solution is just to go to

Tools > Android > AVD Manager and Stop the AVD that you are trying to run

Then When you try to run the AVD again you might have the problem resolved

edited May 14 '19 at 07:33

answered Dec 02 '17 at 08:27

Divakar Rajesh

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I have the same issue, but when I click "stop", nothing happens. – qwerty May 20 '20 at 20:56

score 3 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 18 '19 at 06:25

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For me, "delete .lock file" & "stop emulator then start" & "delete emulator then recreate" does't work.

but,delete "C/User/yourName/.android" folder can fix this problem

answered Mar 18 '19 at 06:25

Rabbit

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but this will delete the emulator also? – Sreejesh K Nair Mar 03 '21 at 05:39

score 3 · Answer 16 · answered Sep 07 '19 at 08:22

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For MAC Users

Open Terminal, cd to the given path. List all the files using the command ls. You will see two files with .lock extensions or maybe more. Just delete those files.

answered Sep 07 '19 at 08:22

Ajji

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score 3 · Answer 17 · answered Dec 01 '20 at 07:08

For Windows: Step By Step Instructions below:

Locate the avd folder: *C:\Users\username\.android\avd*
Try delete *lock and figure out the process holding the lock
Ctrl+Shift+Esc to get to TaskManager
Select Pid and Process name by right clicking on the header
Get the PID number of the offending application
on cmd type: taskkill /F /PID /PIDnumber
Now go back to the avd folder & delete the *lock files. It will work.
Restart Emulator

score 2 · Answer 18 · answered Nov 19 '14 at 11:06

2

Just follow the tips from Android Studio ... Delete the file corresponding to your avd and recreate it.

This happens when the virtual device is shut down in an unexpected state.

answered Nov 19 '14 at 11:06

pdegand59

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i cant delet it.bacause it runs another program – sadesha balasooriya Jul 06 '17 at 12:45

score 2 · Answer 19 · answered Mar 07 '22 at 10:00

I Also have the same problem but in ubuntu 20.04 and I had to navigate to /home/your_username/.android/avd/Pixel_2_API_28.avd/*.lock and then delete all file with .lock

Note: you first need to enable show hidden files and I may have used different device (Pixel_2_API_28) from yours but it is applied to any device

score 2 · Answer 20 · answered Oct 19 '22 at 14:19

For Linux this should clear them for all devices in one go if your issue is just .lock files

find $HOME/.android -type f -name '*.lock' -exec rm {} \;

Example with it just echoing out.

❯ find $HOME/.android -type f -name '*.lock' -exec echo rm {} \;
rm /home/mike/.android/build-cache.lock
rm /home/mike/.android/debug.keystore.lock
rm /home/mike/.android/avd/Pixel_6_Pro_API_33.avd/multiinstance.lock
rm /home/mike/.android/avd/Pixel_6_Pro_API_33.avd/hardware-qemu.ini.lock
rm /home/mike/.android/avd/Pixel_6_Pro_API_30.avd/multiinstance.lock
rm /home/mike/.android/avd/Pixel_6_Pro_API_30.avd/hardware-qemu.ini.lock
rm /home/mike/.android/build-cache/3.5.2.lock
~ at 10:16:27 
❯

If you did not stop them all first can run this first beforehand.

adb devices | grep emulator | cut -f1 | while read line; do adb -s $line emu kill; done

score 1 · Answer 21 · edited Nov 19 '14 at 11:22

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If "adb kill-server" dont work try killing the adb from System monitor app of ubuntu:

System monitor->processes

All processes will be listed here end adb from here, must be in the top of the list.

edited Nov 19 '14 at 11:22

sharkbait

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answered Nov 19 '14 at 11:01

shijin

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score 1 · Answer 22 · edited Aug 07 '17 at 22:01

1

Open Settings
Goto developer options
Click revoke USB debugging authorizations

edited Aug 07 '17 at 22:01

Floern

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answered Aug 07 '17 at 19:15

user1677230

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score 1 · Answer 23 · answered Feb 20 '18 at 08:17

In your Android Studio go to Tools->Android->AVD Manager. It will list your virtual devices. Click the Action column corresponding to your virtual device. It will list many actions. Click on Stop. This will shutdown your android studio. Now start android studio. Your virtual device should work fine.

score 1 · Answer 24 · edited Nov 19 '18 at 07:17

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Or you can type a command in terminal as

1.killall Finder and then type,

2.defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true it shows hidden .android folder

Open .android folder and delete .android/avd/Nexus_5X_API_26.avd/*.lock file and now you run emulator it works fine.

edited Nov 19 '18 at 07:17

Agilanbu

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answered Nov 19 '18 at 06:54

Kiran Kumar

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Shift+CMD+. = show hidden files in finder – Konstantin Adamov Jun 24 '21 at 21:42

score 1 · Answer 25 · answered Mar 19 '20 at 06:29

1

I closed the emulator, clicked the AVD Manager Icon on the menubar then under the emulators actions tab downward arrow I selected "Cold Boot Now" then ran the program normally by pressing SHIFT + F10

answered Mar 19 '20 at 06:29

Tonnie

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score 1 · Answer 26 · answered Jul 02 '20 at 05:33

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You can also solve this problem by doing "Invalidate chaches/ restart".

answered Jul 02 '20 at 05:33

pankaj

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score 1 · Answer 27 · answered Nov 28 '20 at 07:07

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EASIEST SOLUTION:

Go to AVD Manager
Click on down arrow in the Actions column on the right
Click on Wipe data

You're done :)

answered Nov 28 '20 at 07:07

Stack Fox

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Why would you do this when there is a simple solution? https://stackoverflow.com/a/62676806/2632842 – zehawk Apr 22 '22 at 09:00

score 0 · Answer 28 · edited Nov 19 '14 at 11:11

0

Run this command and try again:

adb kill-server

edited Nov 19 '14 at 11:11

oz123

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answered Nov 19 '14 at 10:50

Konstantin Loginov

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score 0 · Answer 29 · answered Apr 21 '16 at 12:51

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In my case the emulator looked fine but it was hung.

Just killing the emulator and trying again did the trick.

answered Apr 21 '16 at 12:51

Johan Walles

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score 0 · Answer 30 · answered Dec 04 '19 at 16:30

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C:\Users\.android\avd follow the path and open Emulator directory and delete all .lock extension folders.

answered Dec 04 '19 at 16:30

Vivek Pratap Singh

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score 0 · Answer 31 · answered Jun 15 '20 at 05:03

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If you have followed all answers, and no success yet. And not able to find that specific lock.

Search all .lock extension files in /avd dir, and remove them. After then start again emultaor. It works for me without restart system.

answered Jun 15 '20 at 05:03

vivek

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score 0 · Answer 32 · edited Jul 23 '20 at 21:19

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I'm don't know if some one is still having this problem, but, in my case, it's was an issue related to VAGRANT.... more precisely whit Virtual Box. I just stop the vBox proccess (i'm ussing ubuntu), remove the .lock files related to the emulator inself and that's it... the emulator should by ready to go.

edited Jul 23 '20 at 21:19

Dharman

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answered Jul 23 '20 at 21:13

Martín Mori

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score 0 · Answer 33 · answered Feb 21 '21 at 21:07

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I tried solutions above but nothing worked so I deleted the emulator, restart pc and create a new one and it was resolved

answered Feb 21 '21 at 21:07

Hanako

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score 0 · Answer 34 · answered Apr 30 '21 at 18:53

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Check Updates... Emulator had an update. After I updated and restarted.. worked fine.

answered Apr 30 '21 at 18:53

batthis

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score 0 · Answer 35 · answered Jan 19 '23 at 18:45

for Linux , create an executable script that contains this (depends on package psmisc ,Artix Linux):

#!/bin/bash

#kill x86 + x86_64 emulator instances
killall qemu-system-x86_64 -9
killall qemu-system-i386 -9

# delete all lock-files
for n in `find ~/.android/avd/ -name "*.lock"`; do rm -v $n;done

Android Studio : emulator is already running

35 Answers35

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