Do Android 13 emulators not have ARM emulation anymore?

[baltpeter]

I just noticed that I couldn't install an app with native ARM libraries into my Android 13 emulator created as per our README:

Error: Command failed with exit code 1: adb install-multiple /home/benni/Downloads/single-apks/de.tk.tkapp_168_apps.evozi.com.apk
adb: failed to finalize session
Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: Failed to extract native libraries, res=-113]
    at makeError (file:///home/benni/coding/JS/tweasel/appstraction/node_modules/execa/lib/error.js:59:11)
    at handlePromise (file:///home/benni/coding/JS/tweasel/appstraction/node_modules/execa/index.js:119:26)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
    at Object.installApp (/home/benni/coding/JS/tweasel/appstraction/dist/src/android.ts:342:9)
    at <anonymous> (/home/benni/coding/JS/tweasel/cyanoacrylate/examples/multiple-apps.ts:39:9) {
  shortMessage: 'Command failed with exit code 1: adb install-multiple /home/benni/Downloads/single-apks/de.tk.tkapp_168_apps.evozi.com.apk',
  command: 'adb install-multiple /home/benni/Downloads/single-apks/de.tk.tkapp_168_apps.evozi.com.apk',
  escapedCommand: 'adb install-multiple "/home/benni/Downloads/single-apks/de.tk.tkapp_168_apps.evozi.com.apk"',
  exitCode: 1,
  signal: undefined,
  signalDescription: undefined,
  stdout: '',
  stderr: 'adb: failed to finalize session\n' +
    'Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS: Failed to extract native libraries, res=-113]',
  failed: true,
  timedOut: false,
  isCanceled: false,
  killed: false
}

The app has native ARM libraries:

❯ aapt dump badging /home/benni/Downloads/single-apks/de.tk.tkapp_168_apps.evozi.com.apk | grep native-code
native-code: 'arm64-v8a' 'armeabi-v7a'

And indeed:

❯ adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.cpu.abi
[ro.product.cpu.abi]: [x86_64]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist]: [x86_64]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist32]: []
[ro.product.cpu.abilist64]: [x86_64]

Whereas in an Android 11 emulator, I get:

❯ adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.cpu.abi
[ro.product.cpu.abi]: [x86_64]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist]: [x86_64,x86,arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a,armeabi]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist32]: [x86,armeabi-v7a,armeabi]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist64]: [x86_64,arm64-v8a]

To make sure this isn't a problem with how we're creating the emulator, I created a new one using Android Studio. Same problem.

[baltpeter]

To test this further, I also created an Android 12 x64_86 emulator using Android Studio. This one at least supports x86_64 but none of the 32-bit architectures:

❯ adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.cpu.abi
[ro.product.cpu.abi]: [x86_64]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist]: [x86_64,arm64-v8a]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist32]: []
[ro.product.cpu.abilist64]: [x86_64,arm64-v8a]

How odd.

Just to make sure, I also created a fresh Android 11 x86_64 emulator. That does indeed support all relevant architectures:

❯ adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.cpu.abi
[ro.product.cpu.abi]: [x86_64]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist]: [x86_64,x86,arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a,armeabi]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist32]: [x86,armeabi-v7a,armeabi]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist64]: [x86_64,arm64-v8a]

Here are the supported architectures for an Android 11 x86 emulator:

❯ adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.cpu.abi
[ro.product.cpu.abi]: [x86]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist]: [x86,armeabi-v7a,armeabi]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist32]: [x86,armeabi-v7a,armeabi]
[ro.product.cpu.abilist64]: []

That makes sense at least.

[baltpeter]

Meanwhile, I can't run an Android 13 arm64-v8a emulator on my machine:

INFO    | Android emulator version 31.3.10.0 (build_id 8807927) (CL:N/A)
emulator: INFO: Found systemPath /home/benni/android/system-images/android-33/google_apis_playstore/arm64-v8a/
PANIC: Avd's CPU Architecture 'arm64' is not supported by the QEMU2 emulator on x86_64 host.

[baltpeter]

I tried to look for any announcements or similar regarding this but came up empty. The only thing I found was a StackOverflow question with no answers where the user seems to have noticed the same thing.

In terms of official documentation, I only found:

• The announcement blog post from 2020 that only mentions Android 11.
• The emulator release notes for version 30.0.0 (also 2020) that mentions both Android 9 and Android 11.

[baltpeter]

Can someone else please verify my findings? If this is true, we should mention in the README that an Android 11 emulator is recommended for best app compatibility.

[zner0L]

I can confirm this. This is extremely unfortunate.