Session 'app': Error Installing APK

Question

Trying to install app on real device following instructions:- http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html. At end Android Studio giving error:

Session 'app': Error Installing APK

I guess the problem probably can be in my android device(it is chinese Doogee X5). It does not have a given USB Vendor ID in developer docs so I decided to follow instructions with random vendor ID from HTC.

I'm sure there is a way to run application on any android device, but yet I didn't find an answer on how to do that.

I'm running through Linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Have you enabled Debugging mode and Installation from unknown sources in your mobile Settings? You can simple generate a signed apk and them install it on your mobile or else use a Android AVD manager to create a virtual device. — Basu, May 03 '16 at 21:56
Of course I enabled Debugging mode and installation from unknown sources on my device. AVD is working properly but I don't need AVD in this case — Stanislav Barabanov, May 03 '16 at 21:58

Andras Kloczl · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-06T22:14:07.480

87

Edit:

In newer Android Studio versions you can re-sync the project using this button:

For older versions:

Open Gradle window (on the right side in Android Studio) and click on the refresh button.

However it is not a 100% sure fix.

Solutions for other cases:

Open terminal window and type "adb kill-server", then type "adb start-server". Usually after a few hours of inactivity, adb used to disconnect the device. (If you don't have the sdk/platform-tools in the PATH environment variable, then you should open a terminal in that folder)

One tip if these solutions don't help you: If you open the Event Log window in the right bottom corner of Android Studio, you can see a detailed error message.

Other edge case If you see this error: INSTALL_FAILED_INVALID_APK:... signatures are inconsistent. Then unfortunately a gradle refresh isn't enough, you have to go to Build -> Clean Project and then Run again.

Issue with Android emulator If you want to deploy the APK to an Android Emulator and you see the "Error installing APK" message, your emulator may be frozen and need restart.

edited Apr 06 '19 at 22:14

answered Jun 06 '16 at 12:10

Andras Kloczl

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You can comment this after having enough reputation..!! – Janki Gadhiya Jun 06 '16 at 12:27
I had to "Build" - "Rebuild project" after I changed debug certificate. – Michalsx Mar 21 '17 at 13:41
for me , disabling the instant run fixed it – anshulkatta Sep 05 '17 at 05:01
Uncheck the Instant Run from `File >Settings >Build,Execution,Deployment > Instant Run` – meyasir Jul 20 '18 at 06:51
@JankiGadhiya You think so much information you can write in comment? – Devendra Singh Apr 06 '19 at 07:24

score 54 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 06 '17 at 03:38

54

Turning off the Instant run removed my error for Androdi Studio 2017.03.03 v2.3

answered Mar 06 '17 at 03:38

Zero

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Using latest Android Studio (v2.3), suddenly stopped working and I had that annoying issue. I lost 3 days of my spare time to make it work and finally what you suggested did the trick. – joninx Mar 08 '17 at 18:48
Thank you man..you just saved me couple of more hours work to find out the problem. – MBH Mar 21 '17 at 07:45
1

Windows 10 with Android Studio 2.3 : To open this window, File => Settings, in the left pane Build, Execution, Deployment => Instant Run – Saravanan Sachi Jun 21 '17 at 13:15
1

I'm using Xioami Mi4 and this solution works for me. But when I try it on Asus Zenfone 2, it is not necessary to disable "Instant Run". Also, you need to enable "Install via USB" in the developer options if you use Xiaomi. – Alperen Jan 17 '18 at 05:59

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered May 03 '16 at 22:08

12

You have to enable Developer options and enable USB Debugging:

Go to the settings menu, and scroll down to "About phone." Tap it.
Scroll down to the bottom again, where you see "Build number." (Your build number may vary from ours here.)
Tap it seven (7) times. After the third tap, you'll see a playful dialog that says you're four taps away from being a developer. (If only it were that simple, eh?) Keep on tapping, and poof, you've got the developer settings back.

http://www.androidcentral.com/how-enable-developer-settings-android-42

Inside Developer Options, enable USB Debugging

answered May 03 '16 at 22:08

Jorgesys

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Thanks, but I've done it before asking. So USB debugging is turned on while I'm getting this mistake. – Stanislav Barabanov May 03 '16 at 22:21
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For me I had to turn it off and on again to make it work. Otherwise the fingerprint dialog would not appear. – Legoless Sep 12 '16 at 18:49
@Legoless yes my friend you are right, sometimes the first time doesn´t work apparently and you have to turn it off and on again. – Jorgesys Sep 12 '16 at 19:16

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered May 03 '16 at 22:39

8

Try using a different version of Gradle(stable version). To summarize:

Check your gradle file for debuggable false/true
Invalidate caches & restart
Check your install location
Restart adb

answered May 03 '16 at 22:39

Anatoly

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score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 10 '17 at 02:16

8

I fix this by delete the build folder then run project again

answered Jul 10 '17 at 02:16

Linh

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score 7 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 06 '17 at 06:40

7

Make sure that your device is not out of Memory!

answered Feb 06 '17 at 06:40

Tripathee Gaurav

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score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 10 '17 at 18:17

3

I changed my USB port and that fixed it for me.

answered Dec 10 '17 at 18:17

Zach Wymer

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score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 25 '16 at 10:00

2

Make sure that project name doesn't contain special character.

answered Oct 25 '16 at 10:00

Hiren Patel

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score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 01 '16 at 18:48

2

Another possibility may be the USB driver on your PC. In my case, switching from my 3.0 USB port to my 2.0 port fixed the problem.

answered Nov 01 '16 at 18:48

Paul Weber

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Yes I also did so and my problem get fixed. – Haseeb Zulfiqar Apr 19 '19 at 04:28

score 2 · Answer 10 · edited Oct 02 '18 at 13:47

2

Ensure you android device has enough memory to install the app. Sometimes it so happens working with multimedia app where the device storage keeps on increasing and you keep wondering about the error.

Therefore, free up some memory and try installing again!

edited Oct 02 '18 at 13:47

Adil B

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answered Oct 02 '18 at 13:28

Vikas Garhwal

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score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 16 '17 at 10:16

A bit late to the party, but be sure that you are trying to build a proper build variant. It sometimes happens to me that when I update AS, the build variants are totally messed up, so instead of building the "debug" variant I am actually building the "release" variant, which outputs apk to a different location (not to app/build directory, but to app directly) and I get the following error:

The APK file /path/to/file/app.apk does not exist on disk.
Error while Installing APK

To fix this just open the menu in left bottom corner, click on "Build Variants" and select the debug variant (it might have a different name, depending on how many modules/flavors or custom gradle build types you have).

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 16 '17 at 11:55

1

Try to remove the .idea folder and .gradle folder, then click Sync Project with Gradle Files, when the process finished, try to run app again.

Hope it works.

answered Mar 16 '17 at 11:55

Kapil Rajput

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Apr 02 '17 at 04:33

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just press Build button from menu bar and then press build app wait for it finished then press build APK and then run your emulator, it will work

answered Apr 02 '17 at 04:33

Mohamed Seda

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score 1 · Answer 14 · edited Jul 24 '17 at 11:37

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Usage of easily changing variable value will often happen in build.gradle(like the Date)

edited Jul 24 '17 at 11:37

byJeevan

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answered Jul 24 '17 at 07:44

chany

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score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 13 '17 at 13:19

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In my case with Android 8.0(Oreo), no one of this solutions worked! If you have more than 1 user, then you should go to Settings->Applications->All Applications->Find the application and uninstall for all users! After this steps, it worked!

answered Dec 13 '17 at 13:19

Shahen Kosyan

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score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Feb 20 '18 at 15:52

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Just rebuild and clean project, then run project.

answered Feb 20 '18 at 15:52

Houssin Boulla

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score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Apr 05 '18 at 16:24

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This happens because the gradle is not synced with the app. Go to : Tools -> Android -> Sync Project with Gradle files. Re-run and you should be good to go.

answered Apr 05 '18 at 16:24

Aniruddh Gogate

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score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Jun 26 '18 at 09:55

Nothing above helped me. The fingerprint dialog did not appear. I checked another android device and the dialog appeared and debug was possible. So the problem was on device side not on computer side I made reset "to factory settings" on device and this helped me.

score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Mar 21 '19 at 11:03

1

I fixed my issue, simply by using :

Build->Clean Project

then

Build->Rebuild Project

answered Mar 21 '19 at 11:03

Ringlayer Network

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score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Jun 11 '19 at 22:30

I had this same issue and none of the other solutions worked for me.

Although no errors were shown nor expanded upon in my IDE GUI, I opened up a second Android Studio window window with a different project and noticed in the bottom that the "Event Log" showed an error in a different window, but not in the project I had opened. The issue stated was:

Error: INSTALL_FAILED_CONFLICTING_PROVIDER

Which lead me here - Install shows error in console: INSTALL FAILED CONFLICTING PROVIDER :

I had this FileProvider labeled in the manifest:

<provider
    android:name="androidx.core.content.FileProvider"
    android:authorities="myapp.sameonehere.android.fileprovider"
    android:exported="false"
    android:grantUriPermissions="true">
    <meta-data
        android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
        android:resource="@xml/file_paths" />
</provider>

Which I had copied from another project and forgotten to rename the 'authorities' String in. After changing it to something unique, it ran without issue.

Make sure you don't have any conflicting authority Strings like in my example.

Also, if no errors are showing up, try opening a second project and see if the "Event Log" shows errors in that location instead.

score 1 · Answer 21 · answered Dec 11 '19 at 11:19

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Uninstall the app, and re-install and it should work!

answered Dec 11 '19 at 11:19

Karan Khurana

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score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Aug 29 '17 at 17:10

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Go to avd manager and click on Wipe Data of the device you want to run. Worked for me. The size of device on disk will reduce after wiping the data. I hope it helps someone.

answered Aug 29 '17 at 17:10

Fidan Gill

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score 0 · Answer 23 · answered Jul 27 '18 at 16:24

You have to enable Developer options and enable USB Debugging:

1:Go to the settings menu, and scroll down to "About phone." Tap it. 2:Scroll down to the bottom again, where you see "Build number." (Your build number may vary from ours here.) Tap it seven (7) times. After the third tap, you'll see a playful dialog that says you're four taps away from being a developer. Keep on tapping, and poof, you've got the developer settings back.

score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Apr 06 '19 at 01:30

0

My issue was solved by Clean --> ReBuild --> Run and in my case it was because i accidentally deleted the project folder and when i clicked ctrl+z to restore something wrong happened.

answered Apr 06 '19 at 01:30

Zeyad

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score 0 · Answer 25 · answered May 09 '19 at 17:32

My problem was that I didn't accept the connection from the computer after turning on remote debugging. Once I accept the mac address, it went away. Silly mistake, but I didn't see the dialog box the first time. Worth a quick check if the others don't resolve the issue. But likely only a problem the first time you set up a phone.

score 0 · Answer 26 · answered May 16 '19 at 09:12

0

What worked for me is deleting the app from the emulator (which was an app built from an older commit) and re-running from Android Studio.

answered May 16 '19 at 09:12

mt0s

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Which emulator? I have Andy and try to fix this error but still no success. – Čamo Apr 30 '20 at 21:31

Eugene Voronoy · Answer 27 · 2019-06-07T09:21:47.690

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It was written above: in my case it was just out of memory on device storage. Add more empty space - and error will disappear

edited Jun 07 '19 at 09:21

answered Jun 06 '19 at 14:51

Eugene Voronoy

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score 0 · Answer 28 · answered Jul 05 '19 at 06:06

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I tried invalidating cache, deleting build folder and gradle sync. Also, I couldn't uninstall because the app is not visible on device. So I tried uninstalling through ADB and it worked.

adb uninstall <package_name>

answered Jul 05 '19 at 06:06

mihirjoshi

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score -1 · Answer 29 · answered Jul 12 '17 at 00:58

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If you are using android emulator, try changing a device.

answered Jul 12 '17 at 00:58

loick

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Why should change device type for simulation – EsmaeelE Jul 12 '17 at 01:20

Session 'app': Error Installing APK

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