Orbit does not recognize the new Android SDK's default path

[mchisolm0]

Summary

Main bug

Orbit on CachyOS Linux (Arch based distro) will only recognize the old Android SDK path of ~/Android/Sdk and not the new default Android Studio seems to install to of ~/Android/sdk. This is similar to the issue I found on expo-cli in this issue in the expo/expo repo.

Extra details

Immediately after installing Expo Orbit and launching it I got a pop-up error telling me I did not have the Android SDK installed or that I needed to use ANDROID_HOME env variable (and possibly a different env variable, but I do not remember) to specify the path. When I got past the pop-up, Orbit gave its drop-down (see picture below) did not have any emulators and showed a warning icon (it had a triangle warning on the right side).

Pop-up when you click on the triangle warning icon

Normal pop-up behavior once I have the old path

Related bug

It seems Orbit will not correctly see the ANDROID_HOME env variable, either.

Steps to reproduce

On CachyOS Linux

Install from rpm file in expo/orbit releases

Followed this guide

1. Install rpm with sudo pacman -Syu rpm-tools
2. Make a temp directory for build files with mkdir -p tmp/orbit
3. Move into the directory with cd temp/orbit
4. Get the latest rpm release for Orbit with curl -L "https://github.com/expo/orbit/releases/download/expo-orbit-v2.0.1/expo-orbit-2.0.1-1.x86_64.rpm" -o expo-orbit-2.0.1-1.x86_64.rpm
5. Make a build file named PKGBUILD in the tmp/orbit directory (the one I made is shown below)

pkgname=expo-orbit
pkgver=2.0.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Accelerate your development workflow with one-click build launches and simulator management"
arch=('x86_64')

depends=()
optdepends=()

source=("expo-orbit-2.0.1-1.x86_64.rpm")

sha256sums=('SKIP')

package() {
        find $srcdir/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d | xargs cp -r -t "$pkgdir"
}

6. Make package with makepkg -si
7. Check the package was made correctly with ls -l /usr/bin/expo-orbit --> Should give output like -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 55223672 Jun 21 21:39 /usr/bin/expo-orbit

Running Expo Orbit

8. Open Expo Orbit application
9. See pop-up complaining Android SDK not installed <-- I believe, but I cannot reproduce currently
10. Click "Okay" option (or the like)
11. Click Expo Orbit icon in system try
12. See warning icon that adb is not installed
13. Click the triangle warning sign on the right of "Android" to see instructions to install adb globally or use the ANDROID_HOME env variable

To get it working

14. Open file explorer or terminal
15. Navigate to the default Android SDK location (currently ~/Android/sdk)
16. Rename the directory to the old default Android SDK location of ~/Android/Sdk
17. Open Android Studio
18. Click "Cancel" when Android Studio complains with a pop-up about "Missing SDK"
19. Click "Okay" when a warning about exiting the setup wizard comes up
20. Click "More Actions"
21. Click "SDK Manager"
22. At the top, click "Edit" to choose the new SDK location
    
23. Click the "Folder" icon to get a pop-up to select the directory.
    
24. Select the new SDK location ~/Android/Sdk (sometimes it takes a moment to load the new directory)
25. Follow the prompts to finalize registering the new SDK location
26. Click the Expo Orbit icon in the system tray (usually it will update automatically, but if not try quitting and reopening Expo Orbit)

Environment

npx expo-env-info

  expo-env-info 1.2.2 environment info:
    System:
      OS: Linux 6.13 CachyOS Linux
      Shell: 3.7.1 - /bin/fish
    Binaries:
      Node: 22.13.1 - /run/user/1000/fnm_multishells/19331_1739984372697/bin/node
      Yarn: 1.22.22 - /run/user/1000/fnm_multishells/19331_1739984372697/bin/yarn
      npm: 11.1.0 - /run/user/1000/fnm_multishells/19331_1739984372697/bin/npm
    IDEs:
      Android Studio: AI-242.23726.103.2422.13016713

[wodin]

By the way, I haven't tried this, but I suspect the following workaround will fix it too:

$ cd ~/Android
$ ln -s sdk Sdk

[mchisolm0]

I think you are right. That should also work.

[mchisolm0]

By the way, I haven't tried this, but I suspect the following workaround will fix it too:

$ cd ~/Android
$ ln -s sdk Sdk

I have confirmed this works.

[gabrieldonadel]

Hello! Did you try using a custom SDK location? You can configure it through the Settings window

[mchisolm0]

Thanks @gabrieldonadel! I am not at my Linux machine, but yes I believe that works. I was mostly wanting to document that the default install location for the Android SDK had change. I believe the "Custom Android SDK root location" is intended for devs who install it to a location other than the default one, so Orbit pointing to a wrong default might cause confusion for devs who install the SDK to the default location.

That is why I linked to this issue in the expo/expo repo for the expo-cli that is fixed by this PR.

[UmarFKhawaja]

Hello! Did you try using a custom SDK location? You can configure it through the Settings window

This does not work. I have tried it.

[UmarFKhawaja]

I have now found a workaround.

You have to define ANDROID_HOME in your login profile. For me, on Ubuntu using bash, it was in the .profile where I had to define it.

Previously, when I had put that in .bashrc, it was not working.