Gradle aapt error: syntax “)” not found on Android Studio 1.5.1 Linux

Question

Unburden

First of all, I would like to unburden: Android Studio completely sucks and it is by far the worst big IDE I've used all my life long! I got stuck on errors just for opening that thing! And when I have hardly fixed one, seventeen new ones come rightly from the hell to my screen! I am (trying) to use that piece of [you know] for 4 days now, and till now I was not able to code one single line of code! What does an IDE is supposed to be useful for again?

-- Edit1: I just installed the full 1.4.1 version right now and first thing it showed me was: WizardException: Ignoring unknown package filter 'source-25' and others errors.

-- Edit2: I did a new FRESH Mint 18 install in a completely clean partition, installed only Java 7 (Oracle) and tried to run the AS-1.5.1 but... the same error on install and a subtle different log of error messages (please, see the log here ) when gradle ing.

The problem

Ok, the last problem (1.5.1) is that now I am trying to make gradle to build the "project" (it is just an empty activity created by the wizard, default code untouched) and I get this error:

~/AndroidStudioProjects/MyApplication $ gradle clean build --stacktrace
Incremental java compilation is an incubating feature.
:clean UP-TO-DATE
:app:clean
//...[other succesfull msgs here]...
:app:mergeDebugResourcesAAPT err(Facade for 16120822): /home/sidney/Android/Sdk/build-tools/25.0.0/aapt: 3: /home/sidney/Android/Sdk/build-tools/25.0.0/aapt: Syntax error: Unterminated quoted string
AAPT err(Facade for 22545775): /home/sidney/Android/Sdk/build-tools/25.0.0/aapt: 3: /home/sidney/Android/Sdk/build-tools/25.0.0/aapt: Syntax error: Unterminated quoted string
//...[other repeated errors here]...
Exception in thread "png-cruncher_8" java.lang.RuntimeException: Timed out while waiting for slave aapt process, make sure the aapt execute at /home/sidney/Android/Sdk/build-tools/25.0.0/aapt can run successfully (some anti-virus may block it) or try setting environment variable SLAVE_AAPT_TIMEOUT to a value bigger than 60 seconds
        at com.android.builder.png.AaptProcess.waitForReady(AaptProcess.java:108)
        at com.android.builder.png.QueuedCruncher$1.creation(QueuedCruncher.java:110)
        at com.android.builder.tasks.WorkQueue.run(WorkQueue.java:203)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
//...[other repeated errors here]...

--- UPDATE: Please, see this other log of the external terminal used to run AS ---

What I've tried to solve that:

• Install aapt system-wide;
• Switch from Java 8 to Java 7;
• Change gradle to off-line;
• Change JDK configs to switch from the AS one to the system one;
• Set SLAVE_AAPT_TIMEOUT to 30 (I changed back as you can see in the log link)
• Set ANDROID_EMULATOR_FORCE_32BIT to true ;
• Install via ubuntu-make and also via ppa;
• And so many others things I could find over Internet.

Environment specs

• Linux Mint 18 (32 bits)
• AS 1.5.1 (now (trying to use) 2.1.0)
• Java Oracle 8 (Already tried the 7)

Why don't I just switch to Eclipse with plug-in

I have a course in mind (in Udacity) and they use that "thing" and it is a prerequisite. I've sent 3 e-mails to them questioning about the possibility of use other IDEs but without answer after 4 days, unfortunately.

Thank you so much for any help!

Answer 1

That error looks like your build tools aren't properly installed/set up. The aapt distributed with the build tools is versioned/linked with the tools, so studio probably isn't going to grab the random system level one. Have you attempted to install them, or did the older Studio version fail to prompt you to do so?

Beyond that, I'm afraid that Studio 1.4 is very deprecated and was missing many, many fixes that are in the newer versions, so it's somewhat likely that you would run into random errors with that version :-( What errors were you encountering with 2.2.1? It would be easier for the Studio team to help address those versus anything you find in 1.4.

Answer 2

My solution? Buy a 64 bits laptop! No installation error, no gradle error, no java error, no error anymore.