Unable to locate SDK when starting Droid Explorer

When I launch Droid Explorer I get an error message that states Unable to locate the android SDK tools, please reinstall the application.

I installed the Android SDK tools from the SDK Download Page.

Note: I am the lead developer of Droid Explorer. I am posting this question as I get a lot of bug reports for this issue. I am trying out using Android Enthusiasts as some what of a support Q&A for Droid Explorer. I will monitor any question tagged with droidexplorer.

Answer

Droid Explorer, at its root, depends heavily on the Android SDK. It communicates with your devices via ADB.

When Droid Explorer launches, it does some system checks to make sure the tools that it needs are accessible. These mainly include adb and aapt. There are some other tools that it uses, but these are the main ones that it needs to communicate.

There are 2 types of errors that can happen with the SDK not found:

---

Registry Error

If you see the following error message:

Unable to locate the SDK Version in 'HKLM\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DroidExplorer\InstallPath'. Try reinstalling the application.

When you first install Droid Explorer, it will ask you for the location of your Android SDK. This value is stored in the Registry.

32bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DroidExplorer\InstallPath

64bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\DroidExplorer\InstallPath

Under this location, you will see a value called SdkPath. This needs to be the location of the root of your Android SDK.

• Make sure Droid Explorer is closed.


• Open Registry Editor
  
  
  
  
  • WIN+R
  
  
  • Type regedit
  
  
  • Press Enter
  
  
  
  


• Navigate to the location explained above


• Set the value of SdkPath to be the path to your sdk: My location is d:\android\android-sdk\.


• Close the Registry Editor.


• Launch Droid Explorer

If you still are getting a registry SDK error after following these instructions, Ask a Question and add the droidexplorer tag.

---

File System Error

If you see the following error message:

Unable to locate the SDK tools. Try reinstalling the application.

This error usually happens when you install the Android SDK, but do not run the SDK Manager and add the required packages to the SDK.

As a rule of thumb, you should follow Step 1, at a minimum, for what packages should be added to the SDK.

Source

1. Get the latest SDK tools

As a minimum when setting up the Android SDK, you should download the latest tools and Android platform:

• 
  

  Open the Tools directory and select:

  
  
  
  
  • Android SDK Tools Android SDK
  
  
  • Platform-tools
  
  
  • Android SDK Build-tools (highest version)
  
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  Open the first Android X.X folder (the latest version) and select:

  
  
  
  
  • SDK Platform
  
  
  • A system image for the emulator, such as ARM EABI v7a System Image
  
  
  
  

Your SDK Manager should look something like this:

If you still are getting a file system SDK error after following these instructions, Ask a Question and add the droidexplorer tag.

---

Extra information about how Droid Explorer looks for these tools:

It will look in 3 places for each tool that it needs to use.

• [SdkPath]/tools/


• [SdkPath]/platform-tools/


• [SdkPath]/build-tools/[latest-version]/

Older versions of Droid explorer looked in [SdkPath]/platforms/[latest-version]/tools/ but this path is no longer valid in the SDK.