5 April 2024 Leave a comment Tech-Help
When working with Appium on Windows 10, a common hurdle for newcomers is an error message indicating that neither the ANDROID_HOME nor ANDROID_SDK_ROOT environment variable was exported. This can halt the progress of starting an Appium session, and thus, needs to be addressed promptly.
Understanding the Environment Variables
The ANDROID_HOME and ANDROID_SDK_ROOT are environment variables that point to the path where your Android SDK is installed. These variables allow tools like Appium to locate the necessary SDK tools to run your applications.
Setting the Environment Variables
To resolve the issue, follow these steps to ensure that your environment variables are set correctly:
- Locate your Android SDK directory. This is typically found within the “AppData” folder for your user, e.g.,
C:\Users\[YourUsername]\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk. - Press the Windows key and search for “Edit the system environment variables” and open it.
- In the System Properties window, click the “Environment Variables” button.
- In the Environment Variables window, under the “System variables” section, click “New” to create a new variable.
- Set the variable name to ANDROID_HOME and the variable value to the path of your Android SDK directory.
- If ANDROID_SDK_ROOT is required as well, repeat the process and create a new system variable with the same path value.
- Click OK to close the dialog boxes and apply the changes.
After setting the environment variables, you will need to restart any command line tools or IDEs that were open before the changes were made.
Verifying the Configuration
Once you have set the environment variables, it’s important to verify that they are configured correctly:
- Open a new Command Prompt window.
- Type
echo %ANDROID_HOME%and press Enter to ensure it outputs the correct path to your SDK. - If you have also set ANDROID_SDK_ROOT, type
echo %ANDROID_SDK_ROOT%and press Enter to verify its path as well.
If the paths are correct, you should be able to start your Appium session without encountering the previous error.
Additional Troubleshooting
If after setting the environment variables correctly you still encounter issues, consider the following:
- Ensure that there are no typos in the variable names or paths.
- Check if there are any running processes that may interfere with Appium, especially if it was force-quit previously. Use a process manager to terminate any lingering Appium processes and try again.
- If you’ve just updated the environment variables, make sure to restart the Appium server to apply the new settings.
Conclusion
Setting up the correct environment variables is a critical step in configuring Appium for Android application testing. By carefully following the steps to define ANDROID_HOME and ANDROID_SDK_ROOT, and ensuring that any additional configurations are in place, you can overcome the initial setup challenges and focus on developing and testing your applications.
