Android virtual devices crash immediately on Mac OS X after SDK update

Issue

I just updated my Android SDK packages on my MacBook Pro, and all of my Android virtual devices started crash immediately. The error log is as follows:

Process:         emulator [583]
Path:            /Users/dannychia/android-sdk-macosx/tools/emulator
Identifier:      emulator
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  eclipse [500]

Date/Time:       2014-03-19 22:45:21.124 -0700
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version:  6

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000003f7d
Crashed Thread:  0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0   dyld                            0x8fe0f318 ImageLoaderMachO::bindLocation(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, unsigned long, unsigned long, ImageLoader const*, unsigned char, char const*, long, char const*) + 278
1   dyld                            0x8fe15ee3 ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::bindAt(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, unsigned long, unsigned char, char const*, unsigned char, long, int, char const*, ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::LastLookup*) + 131
2   dyld                            0x8fe203d1 ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::eachBind(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, unsigned long (ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::*)(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, unsigned long, unsigned char, char const*, unsigned char, long, int, char const*, ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::LastLookup*)) + 577
3   dyld                            0x8fe22c42 ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::doBind(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, bool) + 290
4   dyld                            0x8fe0cc32 ImageLoader::recursiveBind(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, bool) + 120
5   dyld                            0x8fe0dea3 ImageLoader::link(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, bool, bool, ImageLoader::RPathChain const&) + 209
6   dyld                            0x8fe056af dyld::link(ImageLoader*, bool, ImageLoader::RPathChain const&) + 137
7   dyld                            0x8fe0788d dyld::_main(macho_header const*, unsigned long, int, char const**, char const**, char const**) + 3994
8   dyld                            0x8fe018b1 dyldbootstrap::start(macho_header const*, int, char const**, long) + 779
9   dyld                            0x8fe01057 _dyld_start + 39

Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit):
  eax: 0x00000002  ebx: 0x8fe0f216  ecx: 0xbfffd5dc  edx: 0xa0ccd4c0
  edi: 0x00003f7d  esi: 0x00000002  ebp: 0xbfffd268  esp: 0xbfffd210
   ss: 0x0000001f  efl: 0x00010286  eip: 0x8fe0f318   cs: 0x00000017
   ds: 0x0000001f   es: 0x0000001f   fs: 0x00000000   gs: 0x00000037
  cr2: 0x00003f7d

They were working properly before the update. I've been told one common cause of this issue is the use of an external monitor, but I don't have any connected to my MacBook Pro. I deleted my entire SDK folder and installed everything again from scratch, but that didn't help. I also deleted the .android folder to no avail either.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Solution

Turns out this is a known issue 67036 in SDK 22.6. Two solutions are provided in the comments of this issue:

1. downgrade Android SDK to 22.3
2. use the Genymotion emulator

The downgrade steps from another post solved the problem for me. If during the boot Android Studio asks to upgrade the SDK, just press Cancel.

Answered By - Andrei Terechko