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I am attempting to run my app in an emulator and have been receiving the following error:

Installation failed since the APK was either not signed, or signed incorrectly. If this is a Gradle-based project, then make sure the signing configuration is specified in the Gradle build script.

I am attempting to run the app with a debug setting so signing the app should not be necessary as it will be given a temporary signature upon building.

Maarten Bodewes
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ImpromptuMusic
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  • Note that the [tag:signature] tag is not correct as that's about *method* signatures. – Maarten Bodewes Apr 08 '15 at 21:49
  • I think that this is a bug, I had the same problem but only in 2 emulators, it worked fine in the others emulators, swap emulator as a temporary solution – D4rWiNS Dec 04 '15 at 12:12

7 Answers7

7

This happens often when you install the same app generated on a different computer. Even the unsigned apk has a signature, so your phone is confused why you're trying to install something with the same package name that was generated on a different computer.

Go to your settings -> apps, then find the app in the list, and clear its data and uninstall it.

Then try installing again. That'll fix it.

Alex K
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7

This problem can be resolved by below two ways

  1. Change Built Variant to debug cnange_built_variant
  2. Define your application`s signingConfigs signingConfigs

First solution works when you built your application in debug mode. But, once you are ready to publish your application on Google Play store you need to go by second way.

Read for more -> Sign Your App

Hope this will help one and all!

Rupesh Yadav
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  • That is the solution! I created a new flavor for my App, so I was wrongly trying to run the release version, task that ask for a signed version. The solution was just try execute the debug version and it worked! Thanks Rupesh! – Bruno Morais Jul 28 '16 at 18:29
3

I had this same problem occur last night. Running in debug, in my case the app had previously been installed from weeks ago, and I had deleted it, but I was still getting the error and couldn't install it again. I was able to resolve it by going into the AVD manager and wiping user data from there. After that installation and debugging went fine.

DrewJordan
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0

There may be already install current app with certificate

uninstall it and try again

Ag.Pro. Dev
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I solved it more or less following the answer of Alex K above, but did not know where to look for 'settings' (total beginner!).

So go to the AVD manager (icon of mobile in toolbar) and click on the arrow on the far right, a small menu appears and here you select 'Wipe Data'.

You do need to first close the emulator.

Wil-It
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What I tried:

None of those solved the issue. In the end I executed the compilation/signing steps manually until I found the culprid: One of the file in my asset folder was 'Icon?' generated by MacOSX

In order to detect it I followed the instructions here to Build an unsigned APK and sign it manually: https://developer.android.com/studio/publish/app-signing#sign-manually

When I ran step 3 (apksigner) I got an exception with message cannot sign apk because of file ..\folder\folder\Icon?

I understand that what was happening is that Android Studio did not capture the exception and tried to deploy the unsigned application onto the emulator.

Once I removed the file and tried again I no longer had the issue. (quite a pain to find the root cause...)

So, step 1:

  • Run the standard check (clear cache..)
  • IF you have a MacOSX, check if one or multiple of your file is 'Icon?'
  • Step 2 - run the steps manually
Julien
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-1

If you still get this error in debug mode, follow these steps:

  1. Clean your project
  2. Run it again

This works for me on Android 2.2 Beta.

Nander Speerstra
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Talha Uzair
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