Cordova does not “see” Android SDK version

Question

I am in the process of setting up a new Cordova CLI toolchain to build hybrid Android apps that target Android 5.1+. I am using

• Node 8.9.2
• Cordova 7.1.0

After issuing a cordova create... command to create a new Cordova project I proceeded to add Android 5.1 using cordova platform add android@5.1.0 which went smoothly.

I have also ensured that I have the relevant Android SDKs available and pointed at properly via ANDROID_HOME . I currently have SDKs 19 through to 27 installed.

However, when I issue a cordova build android I get the message Error: Android SDK not found . Strangely enough if I let Cordova install its current default Android version via cordova platform add android which adds Android 6.3.1 it then lets me build the project without any further ado.

Is this a matter of Cordova 7.1.0 simply not wanting to play ball with lower versions of Android or is there something else going on here? Can I get around this by installing an older version of Cordova via npm? If so, which version should I install - and how?

Answer 1

Your problem is you're adding an old version of the cordova-android platform project, ( v5.1.0 ) which is over 2 years old and not compatible with the cordova@7.1.0 CLI.

If you want to target Android 5.1+, you don't need to use cordova-android@5.1.0 , you need to specify a preference in the config.xml to target Android 5.1 (API 22) and above:

<preference name="android-minSdkVersion" value="22" />

You probably want to use the default cordova-android platform version (6.3.1), unless you need to do stuff with Android Studio 3, in which case use cordova platform add android@latest which will add cordova-android@7.0.0 and requires Gradle 4 to build ( see here ).