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How to downgrade Android Emulator

With Android Studio's Android Emulator I'm seeing a problem displaying a complex WebGL-enabled graphics web page in a Java WebView widget (PixiJS demos appear blank in WebView on Android emulator). But I can only reproduce the problem with Android Emulator 27.1.12-4623001. It runs fine for my colleagues running Android Emulator 26.1.4-4266726.

How can I downgrade my Android Emulator from 27.1.12-4623001 to 26.1.4-4266726? I use Android Studio 3.0.1 (so does one of my colleagues though but her Android Studio still has Android Emulator 26.1.4-4266726. I'm also on Mac with High Sierra.

I looked on the Android Emulator Release Notes page but I don't see instructions on how to downgrade old versions. I did try downgrading Android Studio itself but even when I installed Android Studio 2.2.3, the emulator was still 27.1.12-4623001. I even deleted Android Studio 3.0.1 by following How to completely uninstall Android Studio?.

What version of the Android Emulator do I have?

Three methods:

  1. Launch the emulator, tap "..." on the right-hand side panel, click Help > About.
  2. Go to Android Studio > Preferences, search for "Android SDK", click "SDK Tools", and then scroll to Android Emulator.
  3. On Mac, go to Terminal and run ~/Library/Android/sdk/emulator/emulator -version
Solution

  • Google support said I could download old Android Emulator versions as follows:

    http://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-darwin-4266726.zip (for Mac) http://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-windows-4266726.zip http://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-linux-4266726.zip

    Basically, just put the # (the one in major.minor.patch-#) along with darwin/windows/linux if you'd like to download any previous build.

    To install on my Mac computer, I did as follows:

    1. Download http://dl.google.com/android/repository/emulator-darwin-4266726.zip via Chrome into ~/Downloads

    2. Backup the main emulator directory: mv ~/Library/Android/sdk/emulator ~/Downloads/emulator-backup

    3. Replace the main emulator directory: mv ~/Downloads/emulator ~/Library/Android/sdk/

    4. Copy the package.xml file from your previous emulator folder to the new folder, as per the comment by user mhsmith.

    5. Restart Android Studio

    After that, the Android Emulator version was downgraded to 26.1.4-4266726.