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This guide explains how to configure and use the Visual Studio Android Emulator to develop Xamarin.Android apps in Visual Studio 2015. Overview Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 includes an Android emulator that can be used as a target for debugging an Xamarin.Android app: Visual Studio Emulator for Android. This emulator uses the Hyper-V capabilities of your development computer, resulting in faster launch and execution times than the default emulator that comes with the Android SDK. The Visual Studio Emulator for Android can be used as an alternative to the default Android SDK emulator when developing a Xamarin.Android application.
This guide explains how to launch the Microsoft Android emulator from Visual Studio to test your app, and it describes the various features available in the emulator. You will learn how to select device profiles (similar to device definitions in the default Android SDK emulator) to simulate different types of Android devices.
Finally, a troubleshooting section explains common pitfalls and workarounds. Requirements To run the emulator, the computer must meet the requirements to run Hyper-V. Hyper-V requires a 64-bit version of the Pro edition of Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or higher. For more information about requirements, see. ℹ️ Note: You cannot use HAXM (used by the Android SDK Emulator) while Hyper-V is enabled.
For more about the limitations and potential problems with HAXM, see. Running the Emulator Visual Studio makes several pre-configured target-device profiles available in the Debug Target drop-down menu (as seen in the following screen shot).
The Microsoft Android Emulator targets are prefaced with VS Emulator: When Visual Studio starts a Xamarin.Android application, the emulator is launched with the chosen device target and the app is deployed to the emulator. A message will appear in the bottom left corner of Visual Studio indicating that the emulator is starting: After a startup delay, the emulator screen appears as shown on the left below.
Drag the lock icon on the screen upwards to unlock the device. The Xamarin.Android app should then be running in the emulator as shown on the right: As with the default Android SDK emulator, it is possible to set breakpoints in the code, inspect variables, and view the call stack. The vertical toolbar to the right of the emulator provides access to emulator features: The following list summarizes the function of each button on the vertical toolbar:. Close – Shuts down the emulator application. This button is not used often – typically, the emulator is left running after first launch (to avoid the emulator restart delay) and closed only when it is no longer needed. Minimize – Leaves the emulator running but minimizes it to the taskbar.
Power – Simulates turning the device on and off. (The emulator remains running.). Multi-touch – Overlays several dots on the device display that act as touch points for pinching and zooming. Dragging one dot causes the other dot to move in the opposite direction, simulating two-finger movement. Single Point Mouse Input – Returns the device to single point input (after using Multi-touch input). Rotate Left/Rotate Right – Helps test how the app responds to orientation changes. For example, the first time the Rotate Left button is clicked, the emulator will switch to landscape mode.
When the the Rotate Right button is pressed the emulator will to return to portrait mode. Fit to Screen – Zooms the size of the emulator screen so that it fits on the desktop screen. Zoom – Scales the emulator screen by 33%, 50%, 66%, 100%, or by some custom percentage. The Additional Tools button will display a dialog opens that displays the extra features of the emulator: Each additional feature is available from a row of tabs at the top of the dialog:. Accelerometer – Simulates device movement in a 3D space.
Location – Presents a map that can be used to select and simulate a GPS location. On this map, map points can be created for simulating movement between locations. Battery – Provides a slider to simulate the amount of charge left in the battery.
Screenshot – In this tab, the Capture button that takes a screenshot and displays an instant preview. The Save button will save the screenshot. Camera – Simulates taking a picture via a fixed animated image, a picture from a file, or from an attached webcam on your host computer. It is possible to select either the front or rear cameras. SD Card – The emulator can make a folder on your host computer available to the device as an SD card.
When the app reads and writes files to the simulated SD card, they can be accessed directly from the desktop without using the adb command. Network – Displays a summary of the emulator's network settings (the emulator reuses the network connection of the host computer). For more information about how to use these features, see.
Configuring Device Profiles The Microsoft Android emulator includes a set of device profiles that represent the most popular Android versions, screen sizes, and hardware properties of Android devices on the market. In addition, these device profiles are already configured for various Android versions such as KitKat, Lollipop, and Marshmallow. The Emulator Manager is used to install, uninstall, and start device profiles. From the Tools menu, select Visual Studio Emulator for Android. As indicated in this screenshot: This opens the Device Profiles dialog.
The installed profiles are highlighted at the top of the device profile list. Profiles that are not installed (but are available for installation) are grayed out: To install a new profile, click the profile installation icon (a downward pointed arrow as shown in the above screenshot).
For example, when you click the profile installation icon for the 5.7' Marshmallow (6.0.0) XHDPI Phone, the Emulator Manager downloads the profile as shown here: After the device profile is downloaded, it is highlighted to indicate that the profile was installed successfully. Clicking the Show details icon to will display the platform type, cpu architecture, screen size/resolution, and memory available to the device: When the Visual Studio Debug Target drop-down menu is opened, the newly-installed device profile is now available as a target: This list can be shortened by clicking Uninstall this profile in the Emulator Manager to remove unused device profiles. Note that there is currently no way to create a customized device profile in this emulator. Troubleshooting This section describes some common errors and workarounds when using the Visual Studio Emulator for Android with Xamarin.Android. Emulator will not start In some cases, the emulator will not start if there are incompabilities between the host processor and the Hyper-V virtual machine.
![Devices Devices](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125498418/476634843.png)
To work around this issue, configure Hyper-V to limit the processor features that a virtual machine can have – this improves the virtual machine's compatibility with different host processor versions. Use the following steps to make this change:. Click the Start button, type in MMC, and press Enter.
Click Hyper-V Manager as illustrated here:. In the Hyper-V Manager Virtual Machines pane, right click the emulator that to edit to use and click Settings.'
:. In the settings window, locate the Compatibility section (under Hardware Processor) and enable Migrate to a physical computer with a different processor version:. Click OK and close the Hyper-V Manager window.
App deploys and starts but fails immediately In this situation, the emulator starts, the app successfully deploys to the emulator, and the app starts. However, the app fails immediately.
In many cases, this is also caused by incompabilities between the host processor and the Hyper-V virtual machine. To resolve this error, follow the instructions in (above). Emulator stops with the diagnostic message: libaot-mscorlib.dll.so not found To resolve this error, use the following steps to disable fast deployment:.
Follow the instructions in (above). Double-click project Properties.
Click Android Options and unselect Use Fast Deployment (debug mode only): Drag and Drop does not work If the Visual Studio Emulator for Android is started as an Administrator (or if you launch it from from Visual Studio while Visual Studio is running with Administrator privilege), drag and drop of.APK or.ZIP files may not work. To work around this problem, run Visual Studio Emulator for Android without elevated permissions (i.e., not as Administrator). Other errors The above troubleshooting tips cover the most common problems when using the Visual Studio Android Emulator with Xamarin.Android.
For a more complete guide to Visual Studio Android Emulator troubleshooting, see. Summary This article introduced Visual Studio Emulator for Android; it explained how to use the emulator to debug Xamarin.Android apps in Visual Studio, it described the functions of the buttons on the vertical toolbar, and it provided a brief overview of the features available in the Additional Tools dialog. It explained how to use the Emulator Manager to install, uninstall, and start device profiles. A Troubleshooting section explained common problems and workarounds when using the emulator.