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Eclipse 3.4.2 / Android 1.5 Installation Notes

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Upgrading the Android SDK took a lot more effort than I thought it would. This time, it took me 2-3 days before I could get the emulator working with the HelloAndroid example app.

Here’s a summary of what I did and the errors I encountered:

  1. Installing Eclipse in “C:\Program Files” directory – Sure, it works at first, but strange and obscure issues will pop up later, especially when installing different plugins down the road. If you get errors such as “Failed to prepare partial IU” and “Android SDK Content Loader – java.lang.NullPointerException”, try moving the Eclipse install directory to the root (aka C:) directory. (Incidentally, this is the main issue which affected the upgrade.)

  2. Turn on Eclipse’s Automatic Updates – Under Window > Preferences > Install/Update > Automatic Updates, enable this feature, adjust to your liking, and click Apply. If this is a fresh install and you left it as default settings, on your next restart let it do its thing at the beginning. A lot of problems will be resolved this way.

  3. Older versions of Eclipse – I was using version 3.4.0, and there were quite a few changes between then and 3.4.2. After the upgrade, life became 100% simpler when dealing with plugin updates/upgrades. I highly recommend you upgrade to the latest version, and while you’re at it, go ahead and take note of #1 again.

  4. Repository error during android plugin install (http or https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/) – if Eclipse complains of an invalid repository and the alternative is the same, try using http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/site.xml . This worked like a charm for me.

  5. Be sure to update the path environmental variable to reflect the new SDK tools folder and restart your session (or machine even) for the PATH to take effect.

Hope this helps.