Android Command line tools sdkmanager always shows: Warning: Could not create settings

android, android-build, android-sdk-manager, android-studio-3.6, gitlab-ci

Solution

Instead of passing the argument `--sdk_root` for each single command execution, let's deep dive into the real cause.

Starting from Android SDK Command-line Tools 1.0.0 (6200805), in contrast to Android SDK 26.1.1 (4333796), the `tools` directory hierarchy has been changed. Previously it was placed right inside `ANDROID_HOME` (which is deprecated, we will use the term `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT` for the rest of the paragraph), now it's still named as `tools` (the only thing you'll get after unpacking the downloaded commandlinetools zip file), but differently, you have to place it inside a directory called `cmdline-tools` on your own. The name `cmdline-tools` comes from its package name, where you can get from listing packages command `sdkmanager --list`, whose outputs include `cmdline-tools;1.0 | 1.0 | Android SDK Command-line Tools`.

Wrapping `tools` directory inside `cmdline-tools` directory would make it work, and help you get rid of the annoying `--sdk_root` argument. But what about the other parts?

Well, that's all you have to change. Let me explain more.

- The king - `sdkmanager` lives inside `cmdline-tools/tools/bin`, you'd better set in `PATH` environment variable

- `cmdline-tools` should not be set as `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT`. Because later, when updating Android SDK, or installing more packages, the other packages will be placed under `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT`, but not under `cmdline-tools`.

- The final, complete `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT` directory structure should look like below, consist of quite a few sub-directories: `build-tools`, `cmdline-tools`, `emulator`, `licenses`, `patcher`, `platform-tools`, `platforms`, `system-images`. You can easily point out that `build-tools` and `cmdline-tools` are siblings, all sit inside the parent `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT`.

Let me recap in a simple way:

- Set your preferred `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT` (just like before)

- Download and unpack the commandlinetools zip file into a directory called `cmdline-tools`, which is inside `ANDROID_SDK_ROOT`

- Append the directory `$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin` to environment variable `PATH`, so that the system knows where to find `sdkmanager`

!!UPDATE!!

The behavior has changed again since the build `6858069` (Android SDK Command-line Tools 3.0):

- After unzipping the package, the top-most directory you'll get is `cmdline-tools`.

- Rename the unpacked directory from `cmdline-tools` to `tools`, and place it under `$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools`, so now it should look like: `$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools`. And inside it, you should have: `NOTICE.txt bin lib source.properties`. Actually according to the official Command-Line Tools doc, the tree structure should be `android_sdk/cmdline-tools/version/bin/`, but I've checked, using `version` or `tools` makes no difference here.

- For your environment variable `PATH`, I would recommend you to set like this: `PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/latest/bin:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/tools/bin`, because after update later, you'll get the latest `sdkmanager` placed under `$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmdline-tools/latest/bin`, put it in front will make it higher priority.

Problem

Original source

Related problems

• Android Studio installs without sdkmanager
• cmdline-tools : could not determine SDK root
• How to configure trustStore for javax.net.ssl.trustStore on windows?
• Stuck at ".android/repositories.cfg could not be loaded."
• "Could not find or load main class java.se.ee" while running sdkmanager --licences