How to troubleshoot emulator errors?

To troubleshoot errors on a local Android Studio emulator or a cloud-based Android Emulator Online, work from the most common causes outward: confirm your system requirements and free disk space, verify hardware acceleration is enabled with emulator -accel-check, update the emulator and system images, recreate corrupted AVDs, and reconnect adb. The sections below resolve each named error and give you the exact command for it. If you are chasing iOS Simulator problems instead, see How to Troubleshoot Simulator Errors?.

Emulator won't start or hangs (system requirements and disk space)

When the emulator refuses to launch, freezes on the boot animation, or closes without an error, start with the basics before touching anything advanced.

• Free disk space: the emulator checks for available disk on startup and will not launch if it is too low. Keep several GB free (Google's current guidance is roughly 5 GB or more) and clear space if a launch silently fails.
• Update the emulator and system image: open Tools > SDK Manager > SDK Tools, update the Android Emulator, and update the system image for your AVD. Many "won't start" bugs are fixed simply by running the latest emulator build.
• Read the real error from the CLI: launch the AVD verbosely so the failure prints to the terminal instead of disappearing.
• Allocate enough RAM: in the Device Manager, edit the AVD and give it adequate RAM and internal storage. Under-provisioned AVDs hang on boot.

List your AVDs and launch one with verbose logging to surface the underlying cause:

# List available AVDs (use the exact name to launch)
emulator -list-avds

# Launch an AVD verbosely to surface the real error
emulator -avd <avd_name> -verbose

If the emulator boots but is merely slow or laggy rather than broken, that is a different problem. See Handle Performance Issues with the Emulator.

Hardware acceleration errors (HAXM is deprecated, use AEHD / WHPX / KVM / Hypervisor.framework)

If the emulator reports that it cannot find a hypervisor or that acceleration is unavailable, the fix is no longer Intel HAXM. Intel discontinued HAXM in January 2023, and from Android Emulator 36.2.x onward the emulator no longer uses HAXM at all. Older guidance that tells you to "reinstall the latest HAXM" or pin "HAXM 6.1.2" is out of date. Uninstall HAXM if it is still present and switch to the current per-platform acceleration driver.

First, confirm what your machine actually has:

# Confirm hardware acceleration is installed and usable
emulator -accel-check

• Windows: enable Windows Hypervisor Platform (WHPX) from Windows Features, or install the Android Emulator Hypervisor Driver (AEHD) from the SDK Manager. AEHD works for both Intel and AMD CPUs, but note that Google has scheduled AEHD to sunset at the end of 2026, so WHPX is the more future-proof path. Also enable virtualization (VT-x / AMD-V or SVM) and Data Execution Prevention in your BIOS or UEFI.
• macOS: acceleration uses the built-in Hypervisor.framework, so there is nothing to install. HAXM has not been available on macOS since macOS 11, which is exactly why the old "use HAXM on macOS 10.9" advice no longer applies.
• Linux: install and verify KVM. Run sudo kvm-ok to confirm KVM acceleration can be used.
• "VT feature disabled in BIOS/UEFI": reboot into firmware settings and turn on hardware virtualization. Acceleration cannot work while it is disabled, no matter which driver you install.

On Windows you can check and enable the relevant features from PowerShell (an administrator session and a reboot are required):

# Check Hyper-V / Windows Hypervisor Platform state
Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-All -Online
Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName HypervisorPlatform -Online

# Enable them, then reboot
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName HypervisorPlatform -All

If you are setting acceleration up from scratch, our guide on Install Setup Android Emulators walks through the full install path.

"vulkan-1.dll cannot be found", graphics, and exit-code errors

• vulkan-1.dll cannot be found: update the emulator through Tools > SDK Manager so it ships the required Vulkan loader. If the error persists or your GPU drivers are unreliable, disable Vulkan at launch.
• Process finished with exit code -1073741511 (or similar) on Windows: this usually means a missing system DLL such as the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime (msvcp140.dll) or, on Windows "N" editions, the Media Feature Pack. Install the latest Visual C++ Redistributable and the Media Feature Pack, then relaunch.
• GPU / graphics rendering failures: switch the rendering mode. Try -gpu host, -gpu auto, or fall back to software rendering with -gpu swiftshader, and update your Intel/NVIDIA/AMD graphics drivers.
• MMIO access error: this transient virtualization error is typically cleared by restarting the emulator.

# Disable Vulkan if "vulkan-1.dll cannot be found"
emulator -avd <avd_name> -feature -Vulkan

# Force software GPU rendering if graphics fail
emulator -avd <avd_name> -gpu swiftshader

Cold boot, quick boot, and wiping data

The emulator saves a snapshot when you close it (quick boot) so it can resume quickly. A corrupted or stale snapshot is a frequent reason an AVD boots into a broken state or crashes immediately.

• Cold Boot Now: in the Device Manager, open the AVD's drop-down menu and choose Cold Boot Now to start from a clean power-on instead of the saved snapshot.
• Wipe Data: choose Wipe Data to reset the AVD to a factory state. This clears a corrupted user partition and broken snapshots.
• Snapshot or MAC-address conflicts: when two AVDs end up sharing a snapshot you may see networking or MAC-address clashes. Wipe data on the affected AVD, or create a fresh AVD to break the shared state.
• Quick boot vs cold boot: quick boot is faster day to day, but whenever the emulator behaves oddly after an update, a cold boot is the quickest way to rule out a bad snapshot.

Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3): use arm64 system images, not x86

On Apple Silicon Macs, the emulator fails to start or crashes when the AVD is built on an x86 or x86_64 system image, because those images cannot run on ARM hardware.

• Download the right image: open the SDK Manager and install an arm64-v8a system image for the API level you need.
• Remove the incompatible image: delete the x86/x86_64 image so it cannot be selected by mistake.
• Recreate the AVD: build a new AVD on the arm64 image. The emulator then runs natively and accelerated through Hypervisor.framework.

AVD corruption: delete and recreate

If a single AVD boot-loops, crashes on launch, or carries a permanently broken snapshot while other AVDs work fine, the AVD itself is corrupted. The reliable fix is to remove it and start clean.

• Symptoms: boot loop, instant crash on start, or a snapshot that will not load even after a cold boot.
• Delete the AVD: in the Device Manager, delete the problem AVD and remove any stale files left under ~/.android/avd.
• Recreate it: create the AVD again with a fresh system image and verified settings.

For a clean walkthrough of device profiles, RAM, and storage choices when you rebuild, see Configure Emulator Settings.

adb not connecting to the emulator (device offline or not listed)

When the emulator is running but your tests or IDE can't reach it, the adb bridge has dropped. A healthy emulator shows up as emulator-5554 device in the device list.

• Confirm the device list: run adb devices and check whether the emulator is listed as device rather than offline or missing.
• Restart the adb server: kill and restart the server, then reconnect, to recover from an offline or unauthorized state.
• Apply SDK updates: a mismatched adb and platform-tools version can break the handshake, so update platform-tools in the SDK Manager.
• Check security software: antivirus or firewall rules can block adb's local port. Add adb and the emulator to your trusted list.

# Verify the emulator is connected
adb devices

# Restart the server when the device is offline / missing
adb kill-server && adb start-server
adb reconnect

Once adb is healthy again, our guide on Run and Debug Apps on the Emulator covers deploying and inspecting your build.

Antivirus and virtualization software conflicts

• Antivirus interference: security tools that scan every disk read and write can stall the emulator or block its processes. Whitelist the emulator, adb, and the Android SDK directory in your antivirus. The earlier advice to toggle "Use nested virtualization" and "Hardware assisted virtualization" applies to specific products such as Avast, but the general fix is to exclude the SDK from real-time scanning.
• Competing hypervisors: VirtualBox, VMware, Docker Desktop, and other virtualization stacks can fight with WHPX or Hyper-V for the CPU's virtualization extensions. Keep a single acceleration stack active, or ensure the others are configured to coexist with the Windows hypervisor.
• Nested virtualization: when running the emulator inside a VM or CI runner, the host must expose nested virtualization, otherwise acceleration is unavailable and the emulator falls back to an unusably slow software path.

Skip local emulator errors with a real device cloud

Most of the errors above (HAXM and AEHD migration, missing hypervisors, disk-space failures, GPU driver mismatches, and corrupted AVDs) only exist because the emulator runs on your local machine. Running Android sessions in the cloud removes that maintenance entirely. With TestMu AI, you can launch pre-provisioned Android Emulator Online and real Android devices straight from your browser, with acceleration and drivers already handled, so your team spends time testing instead of fixing local setups. It also lets you reproduce a bug across many Android versions and OEM builds without recreating an AVD for each one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why won't my Android emulator start?

The usual culprits are insufficient free disk space (the emulator checks at startup and refuses to launch below a few GB), missing or disabled hardware acceleration, or an outdated emulator and system image. Free up disk, run emulator -accel-check to confirm acceleration is usable, update the emulator via Tools > SDK Manager, and launch the AVD with -verbose to read the real error.

Is Intel HAXM still used by the Android emulator?

No. Intel discontinued HAXM development in January 2023, and from Android Emulator 36.2.x onward the emulator no longer uses HAXM. Uninstall HAXM and migrate to the current drivers: AEHD on Windows for Intel and AMD (installed via the SDK Manager, and itself scheduled to sunset at the end of 2026), WHPX or Hyper-V on Windows, the built-in Hypervisor.framework on macOS, and KVM on Linux.

How do I check if hardware acceleration is enabled?

Run emulator -accel-check from the emulator directory of your Android SDK. It reports which hypervisor is installed and usable: WHPX or AEHD on Windows, Hypervisor.Framework on macOS, and KVM on Linux. On Linux you can also run sudo kvm-ok to confirm KVM support.

How do I fix the "vulkan-1.dll cannot be found" error?

Update the emulator to the latest version through Tools > SDK Manager, which ships the required Vulkan loader. If the error persists or your GPU drivers are problematic, disable Vulkan by launching the AVD with -feature -Vulkan.

How do I fix an emulator that won't run on a Mac with Apple Silicon?

Apple Silicon Macs cannot run x86 or x86_64 system images. Open the SDK Manager, download an arm64-v8a system image for the API level you need, delete the incompatible image, and recreate the AVD using the arm64 image.

How do I reset a corrupted AVD?

Open the Device Manager and choose Wipe Data or Cold Boot Now to clear a bad saved state. If the AVD still boot-loops or crashes instantly, delete it (along with any stale files under ~/.android/avd) and recreate it from scratch.

• How to Troubleshoot Simulator Errors?
• Handle Performance Issues with the Emulator
• Configure Emulator Settings
• Run and Debug Apps on the Emulator
• What Is an Emulator?