Android Emulator

This plugin is up for adoption! We are looking for new maintainers. Visit our Adopt a Plugin initiative for more information.

Automates many Android development tasks including SDK installation, build file generation, emulator creation and launch, APK (un)installation, monkey testing and analysis...
See also: Android Lint Plugin.
See also: Google Play Android Publisher Plugin.

Table of Contents

Features

This plugin lets you automate a number of Android-related tasks during a build:

  • Creating a new Android emulator
    • Its configuration can be parameterised, including OS version, screen size, locale and hardware properties
    • Android SDK dependencies are automatically downloaded and installed
  • Running any Android emulator
    • Waits until the emulator is fully started-up
    • Emulator snapshots can be automatically created
      • This allows a very fast startup time for subsequent builds
      • This ensures subsequent builds will start from the same clean state
    • Logs are automatically captured and saved
    • Emulator will be shut down automatically when the build has finished
    • Multiple instances of the same emulator are prevented from running concurrently
  • Detecting which Android platforms are required to build one or more projects and installing them automatically
  • Generating Ant build files for any app, test or library projects found in the workspace
  • Installing an Android package onto an emulator
  • Uninstalling an Android package from an emulator
  • Running the monkey stress-testing tool
  • Parsing output from running monkey
    • The build outcome can be automatically marked as unstable or failed in case a monkey-induced crash is detected

Requirements

Jenkins

Jenkins version 2.32 or newer is required.

Android

The plugin will automatically download and install the Android SDK, if it's not already installed when a build starts.
This means that no manual effort is required to start running Android emulators with Jenkins.

You can, however, disable automated installation via the "Automatically install Android components when required" option on the main Jenkins configuration page.

 View manual SDK installation requirements...

If you install the Android SDK yourself, you must install at least two further components, via the Android SDK and AVD Manager:

  • SDK Tools
  • SDK Platform-tools

If you only wish to run pre-existing emulator instances (aka Android Virtual Devices, or AVDs), there are no further requirements — only these two components are required.

If you want the plugin to automatically generate new emulator instances, but disable auto-installation, you must install one or more Android platform versions into the SDK.
By default, the SDK only comes with the bare minimum; in this case you will need to separately download each individual platform version you wish to build or test against.

Again, this is done via the Android SDK and AVD Manager tool, accessible via the command line "android", or via the "Window" menu in Eclipse, if you use the Eclipse ADT plugin. From the SDK Manager, you can easily install the desired "SDK Packages".

Configuration

System configuration

Generally no global configuration is needed — the plugin will try hard to locate an installed Android SDK whenever it is needed. If one is not found, it will be installed automatically.

 See how the SDK is located...

Via the main configuration page, you can optionally specify the location where each build node can locate a copy of the Android SDK.

This can either be an absolute path, or can contain environment variables in the format $``VARIABLE_NAME. This will be replaced at build time from the node's environment variables (see the "Node Properties" settings for each slave), or from the build's environment.

If no value is entered, or the plugin cannot find a valid SDK under the configured path, it will search under the following environment variables on the build node to try and locate a usable SDK:

  • ANDROID_SDK_ROOT
  • ANDROID_SDK_HOME
  • ANDROID_HOME
  • ANDROID_SDK

If nothing is found, the plugin will search on the PATH to attempt to locate a usable set of SDK tools. If, after all these steps, the required Android SDK tools are not found and auto-installation is disabled, the build will be marked as "not built" and will stop.

Job configuration

Running on headless build machines

If you have build slaves which are headless (e.g. Linux servers that don't have a graphical user interface), you can still run an Android Emulator even although, by default, the emulator does require a graphical environment.

Just untick the "Show emulator window" configuration option in your job configuration. This is the equivalent of using the emulator's "-no-window" command-line option.

 Using an artificial graphical environment...

It is also possible to run the Android emulator UI on a headless build slave by making use of an artificial X server, such as Xvnc.

In this case, a recommended setup is to install both Xvnc and the Xvnc Plugin for Jenkins. With this plugin enabled in your job — and Xvnc configured to run without requesting a password — you can run multiple Android emulators in parallel on a headless slave, while keeping the "Show emulator window" option enabled.

Although the Android Emulator plugin has been designed to ensure it always runs after an Xvnc server has been started, the Xvnc plugin does not wait for the Xvnc server to be fully up-and-running before handing control over to the Android Emulator plugin.

For this reason, you may want to delay emulator startup by a few seconds (e.g. three to five), giving the Xvnc server time to finish starting-up before attempting to launch an Android emulator into it. To do so, enter the desired number of seconds in the "Startup delay" field under "Advanced" options.

Other requirements

In addition, while the Android Emulator plugin requires the Port Allocator Plugin, there is no job configuration required for this; everything is handled automatically — you need not select the "Assign unique TCP ports" checkbox in the job config.

Selecting an emulator

After ticking "Run an Android emulator during build", you will be asked whether you want to run an existing AVD, or whether you want to create a new one on-the-fly with certain properties.

Using an existing emulator for a job just requires that you enter the name of the AVD you want to be started. This AVD must exist on each build node the job will be executed on. Existing AVDs are found in your $HOME/.android/avd directory and can be listed using the "android list avd" command.
As with all other properties, you can enter environment variables here using the format $``VARIABLE_NAME.

Alternatively, if you don't have a particular AVD accessible on each build node, the plugin can automatically generate a new emulator if one doesn't already exist:

Each property is mandatory, aside from the device locale. If this is not entered, the Android emulator default locale of US English (en_US) will be used when starting the emulator.

Each field will auto-complete with the default Android SDK values, e.g. 120, 160, 240dpi densities and named screen resolutions including QVGA, HVGA, WVGA etc. However, you can enter your own values if you wish to use a custom OS image, screen density, resolution or locale.
Screen resolutions can be entered either using the named values, or as a "width times height" dimension, e.g. 480x800.

You can specify multiple hardware properties such as the heap size for each Android app, or whether the device has a GPS by clicking the button "Add custom hardware property" and entering the values. See the inline help for more details on the values to enter.

 Using Google Maps and other SDK add-ons...

As mentioned above, the "Android OS version" field will auto-complete to existing SDK versions such as "1.5" or "2.2".

However, it is possible to enter different values in this field, for example if you want to use an Android SDK add-on that you have installed, e.g. the Google APIs add-on or the Samsung GALAXY Tab add-on.

In these cases, just enter the appropriate value given by the "android list target" command. For example:

  • The Google APIs add-on, based on an Android 1.6 emulator: Google Inc.:Google APIs:4
  • The Samsung GALAXY Tab add-on, based on an Android 2.2 emulator: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.:GALAXY Tab Addon:8

Multi-configuration (matrix) job

The real awesomeness of this plugin comes when used in conjunction with a multi-configuration job type.

By using the "Run emulator with properties" setting, in conjunction with one-or-more matrix axes and the Android Emulator plugin's variable expansion, you can generate and test with a large number of distinct Android emulator configurations with very little effort.

To give a full example, if you want to test your application across multiple Android OS versions, multiple screen densities, multiple screen resolutions and for several target locales, you might set up your matrix axes as follows:

As each of these axis names (i.e. "density", "locale", "os", "resolution") are exported by Jenkins as environment variables, you can make use of these when launching a new Android emulator:


When the build executes, this would automatically generate and allow you to test your application against 64 unique device configurations.

However, you should note that not all combinations are valid. For example, a WVGA (800x480) resolution device makes no sense with a screen density of 120 (unless you have superhuman eyesight).

For this purpose, you can use the "Combination Filter" feature, which tells Jenkins which combinations of the matrix axes are valid. In the case of screen densities and resolutions, a configuration like this should instruct Jenkins to only build for configurations which make sense:

(density=="120").implies(resolution=="QVGA" || resolution=="WQVGA" || resolution=="FWQVGA") &&
(density=="160").implies(resolution=="HVGA" || resolution=="WVGA" || resolution=="FWVGA") &&
(density=="240").implies(resolution=="WVGA" || resolution=="FWVGA")

Note that each variable refers to one of the matrix axes, not an Android Emulator plugin property.

Build execution

Environment

For convenience, the plugin places a number of variables into the build environment relating to the emulator in use:

Variable name Example value Description
ANDROID_SERIAL localhost:34564 Identifier for connecting to this AVD, e.g. adb -s localhost:34564 shell
ANDROID_AVD_DEVICE localhost:34564 Identifier for connecting to this AVD, e.g. adb -s localhost:34564 shell
ANDROID_AVD_ADB_PORT 34564 Port used by ADB to communicate with the AVD (random for each build)
ANDROID_AVD_USER_PORT 40960 Port used to access the AVD's telnet user interface (random for each build)
ANDROID_AVD_NAME hudson_en-GB_160_HVGA_android-7 Name of the AVD running for the build
ANDROID_AVD_LOCALE en_GB Locale of the AVD
ANDROID_AVD_OS 2.1 OS version of the running AVD
ANDROID_AVD_DENSITY 160 Screen density in dpi of the AVD
ANDROID_AVD_RESOLUTION HVGA Screen resolution, named or dimension, of the AVD
ANDROID_AVD_SKIN HVGA Skin being used by the AVD, e.g. WQVGA432 or 480x800
ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT 51292 Port that the AVD server for this build is running on (random for each build)
ANDROID_TMP_LOGCAT_FILE /var/tmp/logcat_943239.log Temporary file to which logcat output is written during the build (random for each build)
JENKINS_ANDROID_HOME /home/jenkins/tools/android-sdk The path to the Android SDK being used for this build (optional)
ANDROID_HOME /home/jenkins/tools/android-sdk The path to the Android SDK being used for this build (optional)

Using the emulator

Now that you have an Android emulator running, you'll probably want to install one or more Android applications (APKs) and start running some tests.

Basically, whenever you want to call adb as part of your build, just call it as you normally would, e.g. adb install my-app.apk.

If you're using Android's default Ant build system, you should specify the sdk.dir property, to tell Ant it can find the Android build scripts:
Just add "sdk.dir=$ANDROID_HOME" to the "Properties" field of your "Invoke Ant" build step.

 Documentation for older plugin versions...

Using version 1.18 or older...

Normally, when running an Android application using Eclipse or the command line, either your APK is automatically installed (because there is only one emulator/device attached to your PC), or Eclipse allows you to choose from a list. Similarly, when building from the command line, installation is done with a command like: "adb -e install -r my-app.apk", where "-e" specifies the emulator (or "-d" a USB-attached device).

However, as Jenkins may be running multiple Android-related builds at once, with several emulators running in parallel, it's not possible to automatically determine which emulator should be used. Nor can the user be prompted at build time.

Since version 1.15, the ANDROID_SERIAL environment variable has been automatically set by the plugin. Because the adb tool automatically uses this variable to determine which Android device to communicate with, you no longer need to pass in parameters like "-s" or "-e" to adb.

Furthermore, since version 2.13, if the plugin detects (or automatically installs) your Android SDK, the SDK tools and platform tools directories will be prepended to your $PATH during a build. This means you don't have to supply the full path to tools like adb or monkeyrunner, even if those tools would not normally be on the $PATH.

Using version 1.14 or older...

Working with Android's default Ant build system

The default build system for Android is Apache Ant, which is well supported by Jenkins.

When calling targets like "ant install" or "ant run-tests", the Android build system allows you to use the adb.device.arg property to specify where the application should be installed to.

To make use of this in an "Invoke Ant" build step, just add the following to your Ant "Properties" section:
adb.device.arg="-s $ANDROID_AVD_DEVICE"

Using shell commands

If you aren't using Ant, but want Jenkins to run adb commands for you via an "Execute shell" build step, the process is similar.

To install, use the ANDROID_AVD_DEVICE environment variable with the -s flag:
adb -s $ANDROID_AVD_DEVICE install -r my-app.apk

This would be automatically expanded by the shell to something like:
adb -s localhost:34564 install -r my-app.apk

The same principle applies for any other adb commands you wish to perform, for example to start running tests:
adb -s $ANDROID_AVD_DEVICE shell am instrument -r -w com.example.tests/android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner | tee test-result.txt

Installing project prerequisites

When compiling an Android project, you must have all the prerequisite Android platform images installed. For example, if you have an Android app which relies on an Android library project, plus you have a unit test project — these may all be targeting different Android SDK versions, all of which must be present at compile time.

Normally, with the (deprecated) Ant build system, these target versions are specified in either a "project.properties" or "default.properties" file.

Since version 2.1, the plugin provides a "Install Android project prerequisites" build step for the Ant build system, which automatically detects the target versions in the build workspace, then automatically installs any of the corresponding Android platform images that are not yet installed.

This build step requires no configuration — just add it before the build step that compiles your Android projects.

For the Gradle build system, I would recommend including the Android SDK Manager Gradle Plugin in your project. You may have to use JitPack to get the latest version.

Creating project build files

If you only build a project in Eclipse or using another IDE, you may not have the required Ant build files created or checked into your repository.

Since version 2.8, the "Create Android build files" build step will automatically find any Android app, library or test projects in a build's workspace and will create the build files for them, using the appropriate "android update project" command.

Installing and uninstalling APKs

Since version 1.9, the plugin can automatically install an APK on the started emulator for you.

Under the "Build" section of your job configuration, select "Add build step" and choose "Install Android package".

In the "APK file" field that appears, enter the filename of the APK you wish to install. When a build runs, the APK will be automatically installed after the emulator has started up.

Note: It is also possible to use this build step without having started an emulator via this plugin — you can install an APK on an attached device or other emulator.

Running the Android monkey tool

The plugin provides a Build Step called "Run Android monkey tester" which will run the monkey stress-testing tool against the given Android package.

The output is saved to a file — by default "monkey.txt" in the root of the build workspace.
Don't forget to archive this file by using "Archive the artifacts" option under "Post-build Actions" if you want to keep the monkey output for future reference!

Parsing monkey output

Also provided is a method of parsing the output of the monkey testing tool.

Under the "Post-build Actions" section, enable the "Publish Android monkey tester result". No further configuration is required — by default the plugin will search for "monkey.txt" in the root of the build workspace, parse the file's contents and display the result on the build page.

If the monkey output reveals your Android application crashed or caused an "Application Not Responding" situation, the build will be marked as UNSTABLE.

You can, of course, specify a different filename (including the use of variables) or change the "Set build result" option to mark the build as a FAILURE rather than just UNSTABLE, or leave its status untouched in case the monkey information does not indicate success.

Artifacts

Once the emulator is ready for use, its log is captured until the build finishes. This corresponds to the output of "adb logcat -v time", i.e. the main log output including timestamps.
This will be archived automatically as a build artifact, with the name logcat.txt.

Known issues

 View known issues...

Pipeline not yet supported

This plugin is currently still only compatible with Freestyle jobs — Pipeline support is planned!

Emulator v2

The new-and-improved emulator engine — first released as part of SDK Tools 25 (and Android Studio 2.0) — is supported as of version 3.0 of this plugin.

However, the Quick Boot feature (formerly known as snapshots) is currently not supported, as the command line tools do not appear to support this.

Android SDK Tools

Due to a regression in SDK Tools r12 and r13 (see Android bug #18444), running any builds with the "Use emulator snapshots" option enabled (which is the default), would likely fail to load in the state you expect. For example the emulator may not be ready for use, and the screen may not be unlocked.

To avoid this, either keep using r11 or earlier, or update to r14 or newer. However, if you update, you will have to manually delete all existing snapshot images and allow this plugin to re-create them.
See the Known Issues page on the Android Tools site for more information.

Similarly, snapshot support does not fully function for Android 4.0 until SDK Tools r15. An initial snapshot can be created, but subsequently loading from that snapshot will crash the emulator immediately. Earlier Android versions are not affected, i.e. you can still use snapshots with Android 3.2 and earlier. Upgrading to SDK Tools r15+ should fix this.

As a workaround, you can also uncheck "Use emulator snapshots" in any jobs where you are seeing problems.

Running in a Windows service as "Local System"

New AVDs cannot be generated and run if Jenkins is running as a Windows service, using the "Local System" account (see JENKINS-7355).

  • Workaround: configure the Jenkins service to "run as" a real user

Emulator UI doesn't appear when running on Windows 7

If running Jenkins as a service on Windows 7 or newer, you may find that while the plugin can start an emulator, its user interface may not appear, even if configured to do so.
This is due to something called Session 0 Isolation, which prevents services from starting UIs for security reasons.

If you really need to see the emulator UI, you can either run Jenkins not as a service, or add a slave node to Jenkins (e.g. launch slave via JNLP on the same machine) which will bypass this isolation.

Unexpected timeouts or hanging during build

AVDs can, on occasion, time-out unexpectedly or stop responding during a build, e.g. when trying to install an APK (see JENKINS-7354).

  • This is generally caused by bugs in the ADB process. It can be prone to hanging or crashing. Over time, more safeguards have been added to the plugin, including timing-out after a while and isolating ADB instances, so this shouldn't happen too often.

This should also be more stable with version 3.0 of this plugin, which allows the new emulator engine to be used.

AVDs may not shut down fully at the end of a build

Sometimes the emulator process does not shut down fully at the end of a build (requiring a kill -9 on Linux); the plugin sends a console command to terminate the emulator and the UI window closes, but the actual emulator process does not die.

  • This issue will be fixed once JENKINS-11995 is implemented.
  • If your slave is running Linux, you may be running into Android issue #17294
    In this case, there is a workaround assuming your build doesn't need to use the emulator's audio input:
    • Add a custom hardware property called "hw.audioInput" with the value "no"

Potential upcoming features

Version history

Version 3.0 (December 4, 2017)

Many thanks to Michael Musenbrock for doing most of the heavy lifting on this release.

  • Added support for Android Emulator 2.0 (JENKINS-40178, JENKINS-43215, JENKINS-44490)

    • The QEMU2 engine will be used automatically, and should be faster and more stable

    • Older SDK Tools will be automatically upgraded to a modern version as appropriate

    • Fixed creation of non-default ABI images with SDK Tools < 25.3 (JENKINS-32737)

    • Thanks to Michael Musenbrock

  • Fixed to select the configured emulator executable when listing snapshots (JENKINS-34678)

  • Updated to non-deprecated artifact archiving mechanism (JENKINS-26941)

  • Added configuration-time check for application ID in the APK uninstall step (PR #53)

  • Fixed Findbugs warnings, reduced other warnings, and removed deprecated code usages (JENKINS-45456)

    • Thanks to Michael Musenbrock
  • Added a Jenkinsfile for ci.jenkins.io

  • Updated minimum Jenkins version to 2.32

Version 2.15 (May 23, 2016)

  • Ensure that newer emulators aren't left running when a build completes (JENKINS-35004)
    • This is required as SDK Tools 25.1.6 introduced a breaking change to the emulator console interface

Version 2.14.1 (April 20, 2016)

  • Fix crash when using named emulators (JENKINS-34152)
  • Updated names and inline help for build steps that create project build files or install prerequisites, to mention that these only work for the deprecated Ant build system

Version 2.14 (April 8, 2016)

  • Fixed severe reliability issues when multiple emulators were running at the same time
  • Improved emulator startup detection to be more reliable
    • Thanks to Andy Piper
  • Prevented emulators from using the new QEMU2 engine, which is missing required features (e.g. Android bugs #202762, #202853, #205202, #205204, #205272)
  • Ensured that the screen density is configured when creating an emulator
  • Added the ability to use the dedicated screen unlock command on Android 6+ (JENKINS-30849)
  • Implemented master-agent access control
  • When auto-installing the Android SDK, version 24.4.1 is now used
  • Added support for newer screen densities that are in use (400, 420, 560dpi)
  • Added support for Android 6.0

Version 2.13.1 (April 9, 2015)

  • Fixed an issue where the plugin would prematurely declare that an emulator had fully started up (JENKINS-27702)
    • Thanks to Mads Kalør

Version 2.13 (March 12, 2015)

  • Reverted to the "localhost:XXXX" style of connecting to emulators, as using "emulator-XXXX" seemed to be a very common cause of emulator startup failures (JENKINS-11952)
  • Fixed inability to launch Android tools on Unix slaves from a Windows master due to a bad path separator (JENKINS-23134)
    • Thanks to Dave Brown
  • Fixed the naming of emulators using x86-based Google APIs as Google changed the naming scheme again (JENKINS-23252)
  • Fixed the naming of emulators due to a change in the ABI naming format. (JENKINS-25336)
    • Thanks to Louis Davin
  • Enabled the automated installation of tagged system images, e.g. android-wear/x86
  • Fixed issue where starting a named AVD ignored the configured emulator executable (JENKINS-26338)
    • Thanks to Chiara Chiappini
  • Fixed the inability to start an emulator in certain cases on 64-bit Mac OS X machines with SDK tools version 23.0.4 or newer (JENKINS-26893)
  • Switched to using "init.svc.bootanim" to more reliably detect boot completion, where appropriate (JENKINS-22555)
  • Removed reliance on the aapt tool and the unreliable detection code surrounding it
  • APK install/uninstall build steps now wait for the system package manager to be available before trying to do anything
  • Added timeouts to APK install/uninstall build steps as it's not uncommon that adb hangs during installation (e.g. Android bug #10255)
  • Added timeouts to adb when attempting to unlock the screen after boot
  • Increased minimum Jenkins requirement to 1.565.1 to get a crash fix important for Java 8 users (JENKINS-21341)
  • Added option to run monkey on multiple (or no) packages or intent categories (JENKINS-13559)
    • Thanks to Mads Kalør
  • Added option to pass extra command line parameters to the monkey tool (JENKINS-13559)
  • The SDK tools and platform tools directories of the SDK in use are now prepended to $PATH during a build
    • This means you no longer need to specify the full path to adb in an "Execute shell" build step, for example
  • When auto-installing the Android SDK, version 24.0.2 is now used
  • Added support for Android 5.1

Version 2.12 (October 21, 2014)

  • Added support for Android 5.0, 64-bit system images, and xxxhdpi screen density
  • Fix naming of emulator, so that newer x86 images can be used (JENKINS-23252)
    • Thanks to Thomas Keller
  • Wait for ADB server to start before starting the emulator (JENKINS-11952)
    • Should help with cases where the emulator starts faster than the ADB server
    • Thanks to Richard Mortimer

Version 2.11.1 (May 19, 2014)

  • Added support for Android 4.3 and 4.4

Version 2.11 (May 18, 2014)

  • Fixed problem connecting to ADB with non four-digit port numbers (JENKINS-12821, JENKINS-20819)
    • This should enable connecting to emulators from the android-maven-plugin
    • Thanks to Richard Mortimer
  • Use "emulator" instead of "localhost" when connecting to emulators (JENKINS-12821, JENKINS-22334)
    • This should fix strange connection failures or multiple devices which started appearing in recent SDK tools versions
    • Thanks to Richard Mortimer
  • Added support for build-tools so that aapt can be located in newer SDKs (JENKINS-18584)
    • Thanks to Steve Moyer
  • Work around Android bug #34233 when parsing the snapshot list
    • Thanks to Matt McClure
  • Fixed parsing of snapshot list, for snapshots larger than 1GB
    • Thanks to Matt McClure
  • Fixed automated opt-out of usage statistics (JENKINS-14557, JENKINS-21280)
    • Thanks to Matt McClure
  • Increased emulator startup timeout from 180 to 360 seconds
    • Thanks to Matt McClure
  • Fixed parsing of relative paths on Windows (JENKINS-18970).
    • Thanks to Aitor Mendaza-Ormaza
  • Accept multi-line properties when parsing project.properties files (JENKINS-22530)
    • Thanks to xstex
  • Allow adding a suffix to generated AVD names (JENKINS-11083)
    • This makes it possible to use the exact same emulator config in two jobs without one job having to block waiting for the other job to finish using the emulator.
    • Thanks to Hasan Hosgel and Payman Delshad
  • Fixed paths to ensure the inline help text should always be properly displayed (JENKINS-20303)
  • Ensure that system images are installed in all cases where required (JENKINS-17532)
  • Ensure that named AVDs still work, even when "keep AVDs in workspace" is enabled (JENKINS-18919)
  • Ensure the "Create project files" build step always imports or installs an Android SDK
  • Emulator window is no longer shown by default
  • Emulator snapshots are no longer enabled by default as they are not very reliable (JENKINS-17126)
  • Don't allow multiple jobs to block each other, if they use build parameters to set emulator properties
  • Removed incorrect warnings about potentially incorrect density/resolution configuration (JENKINS-13313)
  • When auto-installing the Android SDK, version 22.6.2 is now used
  • Explicitly added MIT licence to the project config (JENKINS-20009)

Version 2.10 (June 3, 2013)

  • Fixed problems with Android 2.3.3 emulators caused by renaming the x86 ABI package (JENKINS-14741)
  • Licence agreements are accepted when auto-installing SDK components (JENKINS-17997)
  • Fixed auto-detection of the SDK in PATH (JENKINS-17816)
  • Updated SDK auto-detection to handle the new 'build-tools' SDK component (JENKINS-18015)
  • Various new components are now automatically installed along with the SDK
    • Build Tools
    • Android and Google local m2 repositories for use with Gradle builds
  • When auto-installing the Android SDK, version 21.0.1 is now used

Version 2.9.1 (April 12, 2013)

  • Fixed a regression in 2.9 which could cause problems running adb from certain build steps

Version 2.9 (April 11, 2013)

  • Improved detection of app project when creating build files for a test project (JENKINS-17531)
  • ABI field is now ignored when creating emulators which don't support ABIs (JENKINS-14741)
  • Resolved issue when automatically installing SDK on a slave (JENKINS-16720)
  • Builds can now be failed if package installation fails (JENKINS-13932)
  • Builds can now be failed if package uninstallation fails (JENKINS-16246)
  • SD card value in matrix jobs is no longer altered when saving configuration (JENKINS-13931)
  • Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH for emulator to run on 64-bit Linux (JENKINS-14901)
  • Added environment variable pointing to temporary logcat file during a build (JENKINS-12572)
  • Added documentation for 'Create Android build files' step (JENKINS-17456)
  • Raised required Jenkins version to 1.466; Hudson is no longer supported

Version 2.8.1 (February 11, 2013)

  • Fix issues with "Create Android build files" build step when running on slaves, or on projects in the workspace root
  • Updated all links to android.com in the inline help, since Android moved some pages without redirecting the URL (see JENKINS-14860)

Version 2.8 (February 1, 2013)

  • Add build step which creates Android build files for app, library and test projects
  • When auto-installing the Android SDK, now a more up-to-date version is installed (20.0.1)

 View older versions...

Version 2.7.1 (November 29, 2012)

  • Fixed bug where emulators couldn't be launched with older SDK versions (JENKINS-15967)
    • Thanks to Jørgen Tjernø

Version 2.7 (November 26, 2012)

  • Fixed missing icons for monkey results (JENKINS-15903)
  • Add ability to specify emulator executable
    • Thanks to Jan Berkel
  • Added support for Android 4.2 and the xxhdpi screen density
    • Thanks to Hisayoshi Suehiro

Version 2.6 (October 10, 2012)

  • Updates relating to use of the "Install Android project prerequisites" build step:
    • Android SDK and tools will now be automatically installed, if required
    • System images for a given platform won't be installed when not necessary
  • The name of the system image used is now included in the AVD name (JENKINS-14740)
  • Variables are now expanded in the "Target ABI" field
  • Fixed serialisation issue which could cause SDK install to fail on some setups (JENKINS-13420)
    • Thanks to Kohsuke Kawaguchi

Version 2.4 (September 17, 2012)

  • Fixed SDK version string parsing for preview builds of the Android SDK tools (JENKINS-15097)
    • Thanks to Ryan Campbell
  • Added support for Android 4.1

Version 2.3 (July 25, 2012)

  • Fixed SDK version string parsing, now that Android SDK tools uses a "major.minor.patch" format (JENKINS-14497)
    • Thanks to Jan Berkel
  • Which ABI to use when creating an emulator can now be specified (JENKINS-13906)
    • Thanks to Jan Berkel
  • Added global configuration option which causes emulators to be created in a job's workspace (JENKINS-11973)
    • This allows jobs to be run concurrently on the same slave, and the ability to use identical emulator configurations in multiple jobs. Generated emulators can also be easily removed by wiping out the workspace
    • Thanks to Jørgen Tjernø

Version 2.2 (March 27, 2012)

  • Made automated component installation compatible with changes in SDK Tools r17
  • System images can now be automatically installed for all platforms, not just add-ons
  • Corrupt AVDs are now automatically re-created and creation errors are better handled (JENKINS-12120)
  • Snapshot-enabled jobs now get a clean SD card image for each build (JENKINS-13205)
  • Allowed static resources such as icons to be cached properly

Version 2.1 (January 19, 2012)

  • Added new build step which can install prerequisites for any Android projects in the workspace
  • Android SDK is now automatically installed if required by a build step (and auto-install is enabled)
  • Prevented platforms from being possibly downloaded redundantly when installing SDK add-ons
  • Prevented "Send usage statistics to Google" dialog appearing for each build (JENKINS-12326)
  • Increased emulator startup timeout, to help Windows machines (JENKINS-11014)
  • Exposed ANDROID_HOME environment variable pointing to the Android SDK in use (JENKINS-12325)

Version 2.0 (December 26, 2011)

  • Added automated installation of Android SDK, build tools and OS images
    • Where the SDK is already installed, prerequisites can be automatically installed, e.g. OS images, SDK add-ons
    • Automated installation of Android 4.0 system images will be possible when SDK Tools r17 is released (see Android bug #21880)
    • HTTP proxy support is not yet included
    • Thanks to Raphaël Moll at Google for implementing our feature requests!
  • Each build now runs its own instance of ADB, giving more stability and prevents ADB crashes from affecting parallel builds (JENKINS-10148)
    • Thanks to Jørgen Tjernø for the idea and patch!
  • Added option to delete the emulator when a build ends
  • Added detection of missing ABIs (e.g. required for Android 4.0+) (JENKINS-11516)
  • Added support for Android 4.0.3
  • Relaxed the rules for determining whether a screen resolution alias is valid or not
  • More hints are given at configuration time to help ensure an appropriate screen resolution is entered
  • Fixed variable expansion where an existing environment variable clashed with a build variable
  • Temporary log files are now stored outside of the workspace (JENKINS-11492)
  • Connections to the emulator are now made via TCP, which makes startup from snapshot more stable (JENKINS-11952)
  • Made snapshot more likely to succeed on Windows

Version 1.18 (September 12, 2011)

  • Fixed bug introduced by Android SDK Tools r12, where emulator startup was not detected properly on Windows (JENKINS-10815)
  • Fixed bug where build would get stuck during emulator startup if adb hangs (JENKINS-10421)
    • Thanks to Jørgen Tjernø
  • Fixed bug where logcat processes were not always killed at the end of a build (JENKINS-10785)
  • Made emulator shutdown more robust and prevent builds from hanging if the emulator is unresponsive (JENKINS-10778)
    • Thanks for Richard Mortimer for the investigation and fixes

Version 1.17 (August 25, 2011)

  • Added ability to use variables when specifying the package ID to run monkey against
  • Minor monkey fixes and improvements

Version 1.16 (August 19, 2011)

  • Added support for Android 3.2
  • Added ability to specify the psuedo-random seed value used when running monkey (including random and time-based values)
    • Thanks to Jan Berkel
  • Stopped redundant logcat output from being included for each build when using snapshots (JENKINS-9831)
  • Changed startup behaviour to allow manual management of snapshots while the emulator is running (JENKINS-10422)

Version 1.15 (May 20, 2011)

  • Added support for Android 3.1
  • Export ANDROID_SERIAL environment variable, making it easier to use adb (JENKINS-9692)
  • Fixed bug where an APK with spaces in its filename could not be installed (JENKINS-9700)
  • Fixed regression in config UI, where checkbox states weren't shown properly (JENKINS-9747)

Version 1.14 (May 13, 2011)

  • Added logic to ensure multiple builds which need the same AVD will not run in parallel on the same machine (see JENKINS-7353)
    • Thanks to Kohsuke Kawaguchi and Andrew Bayer for the assistance
  • Added new build step that runs the monkey testing tool on an emulator or device
  • Added a result publisher that parses monkey tool output, publishes a summary on the build page and updates the build result accordingly

Version 1.13 (Apr 20, 2011)

  • Fixed bug where snapshots would not function with "Show window" disabled (see JENKINS-9462)
    • Thanks to Valdis Rigdon

Version 1.12 (Apr 08, 2011)

  • Fixed bug which caused creation of a brand new emulator to fail if snapshots were enabled

Version 1.11 (Apr 07, 2011)

  • Added automated reconnection of the emulator to ADB during startup, in case ADB crashes (see JENKINS-7693)
  • Now connects to ADB in the same way that manually-started emulators do, potentially also improving stability

Version 1.10 (Apr 04, 2011)

  • Added automated support for emulator snapshots (added in SDK Tools r9), which enables much faster start-up times
  • Fixed bug which could prevent jobs from starting when SDK Tools version r7 or older was installed

Version 1.9 (Mar 06, 2011)

  • Added new build step that can install an APK on an emulator or device
  • Added new build step that can uninstall an APK from an emulator or device

Version 1.8.1 (Feb 23, 2011)

  • Added support for Android 3.0, including WXGA resolution (1280x800) and new locales

Version 1.8 (Feb 21, 2011)

  • Added ability to set custom hardware properties such as device RAM, Dalvik heap size, keyboard present etc. (see JENKINS-8124)

Version 1.7 (Feb 09, 2011)

  • Added support for Android 2.3.3
  • Improve detection of failures during startup, plus improved logging and minor cleanups

Version 1.6 (Dec 26, 2010)

  • Added ability to set arbitrary command line options when starting the emulator (see JENKINS-8125)

Version 1.5 (Dec 17, 2010)

  • Added support for Android 2.3 and the xhdpi screen density
  • Added detection to handle the new "platform-tools" directory used in SDK Tools r8
  • Added detection of when AVD creation fails due to the desired platform not being installed
  • Improved automated emulator unlocking to be more reliable, particularly on slower machines
  • Fixed bug which could cause build to hang when trying to shut-down the emulator

Version 1.4 (Sep 28, 2010)

  • Added feature to automatically unlock emulator after startup has completed (see JENKINS-7185)
  • Now tries to shut down emulator instances in a cleaner (hopefully more reliable) fashion

Version 1.3.1 (Sep 01, 2010)

  • Fixed bug that prevented custom screen resolutions from being recognised (see JENKINS-7337)
  • When verifying whether an AVD exists, ensure we check the same directory that the android tool creates AVDs in
    • It was possible in some environments (more likely Windows) that this was not the case

Version 1.3 (Jul 18, 2010)

  • Added ability to control whether AVDs have an SD card, and its size
  • Added option to reset emulator to its default state before each build
  • Added option allowing emulator UI to be hidden during a build
  • Added option to delay emulator start-up by a configurable period, e.g. to allow a VNC server to start up (see JENKINS-6912)

Version 1.2 (Jun 17, 2010)

  • Fixed crash that sometimes occurred when creating an emulator.
  • Added more logging and error handling while creating an emulator.
  • Fixed bug that would prevent emulators from starting.
  • Added support for Android 2.2.

Version 1.1 (May 18, 2010)

  • Added ability to create an AVD using platform add-ons (e.g. the Google Maps APIs)
  • Generated AVDs now include a blank SD card image (currently fixed at 16MB)

Version 1.0.3 (Apr 06, 2010)

  • Ensure correct environment variables are used when starting the emulator. Fixes a problem where the emulator may not start under the Xvnc Plugin

Version 1.0.2 (Apr 06, 2010)

  • Added environment variables with ADB identifier, ports and skin being used
  • Ensured correct skins are used for new AVDs

Version 1.0.1 (Apr 06, 2010)

  • Fix minor Java 5 compatibility issue

Version 1.0 (Apr 05, 2010)

  • Initial release