Gradle detects Java 1.8 instead of Java 11

Question

When creating a new project with

npx react-native init newProject

and start the app by

npx react-native run-android

I will receive this error:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where:
Build file 'C:\Users\path\newProject\android\app\build.gradle' line: 1

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred evaluating project ':app'.
> Failed to apply plugin 'com.android.internal.application'.
   > Android Gradle plugin requires Java 11 to run. You are currently using Java 1.8.
     Your current JDK is located in  C:\Program Files\OpenJDK\openjdk-8u292-b10\jre
     You can try some of the following options:
       - changing the IDE settings.
       - changing the JAVA_HOME environment variable.
       - changing `org.gradle.java.home` in `gradle.properties`.

* Try:
> Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace.
> Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.
> Run with --scan to get full insights.

* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org

BUILD FAILED in 11s

error Failed to install the app. Make sure you have the Android development environment set u
Error: Command failed: gradlew.bat app:installDebug -PreactNativeDevServerPort=8081

./gradlew --version

------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 7.5.1
------------------------------------------------------------

Build time:   2022-08-05 21:17:56 UTC
Revision:     d1daa0cbf1a0103000b71484e1dbfe096e095918

Kotlin:       1.6.21
Groovy:       3.0.10
Ant:          Apache Ant(TM) version 1.10.11 compiled on July 10 2021
JVM:          1.8.0_292 (Oracle Corporation 25.292-b10)
OS:           Windows 10 10.0 amd64

I have tried it with other gradle versions and other react native versions, but the error still persists. Existing projects are working...

Answer 1

You need to install Java 11 on your system and update the JAVA_HOME and PATH variables on your system. If you are using Windows, you can add or update it under environment variables. For Linux-based systems, you can just add these commands to to your profile file:

export JAVA_HOME="java11path"

export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH