Android: Google play services not working on the emulator

Question

I had to format my Windows laptop so I copied the SDK folder (because it's about 30 GB large) and i pasted it in the same place on the new Windows copy.

Now when I start Android Studio and SDK Manager everything looks fine and all tools & packages appear as downloaded, but when I start an emulator to test my app, it says Get Google Play Services which I already have in my gradle as follows:

compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:7.0.0'

It was working fine on the old Windows machine but now it refuses to detect Google Play Services .

Also the emulator is very slow, it used to be very fast on the old Windows machine.

What am i missing here ?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The Google Play Services app is missing on the emulator . The library is required only to compile projects against the Google Play Services APIs'.

As per the reference documentation at Setting Up Google Play Services :

If you want to test your app on the emulator, expand the directory for Android 4.2.2 (API 17) or a higher version, select Google APIs, and install it. Then create a new AVD with Google APIs as the platform target.

So what you need to do is use the Google APIs as the target SDK setting.

Answer 2

Download Google Play Services 7.0 and install it in your emulator either via adb shell or simply by dragging and dropping.

I recommend GenyMotion emulators as they are comparatively fast and easy to access.