Jonsdocs

The emulator process for AVD has terminated (fix)

Jonathan -

Readers will be aware that I do Android development, mainly for the eVitabu project by African Pastors Fellowship. As part of this work I use a lot of Android Virtual Devices, or AVDs.

This is a short post explaining a possible fix for the error:

The emulator process for AVD <AVD-NAME> has terminated

I was getting this error when attempting to start any of my AVDs.

The problem

When attempting to start an AVD via JetBrains IntelliJ or AndroidStudio you are met with the error message (above).

Attempting to start the AVD from the command line also fails, but provides more details:

jonathan@ubuntu:~/SDKs/Android/SDK/emulator$ ./emulator -avd Flutter
INFO         | Android emulator version 36.2.12.0 (build_id 14214601) (CL:N/A)
INFO         | Graphics backend: gfxstream
...
ERROR        | unknown skin name 'pixel_6a'

We are unable to start the AVD due to the absence of the pixel_6a skin.

What is a "skin"?

In this context, a skin is just the phone-like decoration that surrounds the Android environment. In the screenshot below, the skin in the black surround that looks like a Pixel 6a phone. The skin also applies the rounded corners and centre selfie camera.

The "skin" is the phone like border, that also applies the rounded corners for the screen and central selfie camera.

Fix

The easiest way to resolve this is by editing the properties of the AVD in either JetBrains IntelliJ or AndroidStudio. Both tools are based on the IntelliJ platform, so the instructions are largely the same.

  • Open either JetBrains IntelliJ or AndroidStudio
  • Open device manager from the tools menu (or from Tools > Android > Device manager if using IntelliJ)
  • Select the three dots menu for your chosen AVD and click edit:
  • On the edit device window, choose the additional settings tab:
  • Change the value of device skin to [None]
  • Click finish in at the bottom right of the edit device window
  • Attempt to start the AVD. Your AVD should now run without any phone decoration

But I like the skin...

You might find that editing the AVD again and setting the device skin to something other than [None] works for you, and that the AVD starts normally again.

Banner image: The error message, a screenshot from JetBrains IntelliJ.