android - uiautomatorviewer - Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine

Question

I am trying to run uiautomatorviewer in terminal. I am getting this error:

-Djava.ext.dirs=/Users/<Username>/Library/Android/sdk/tools/lib/x86_64:/Users/<Username>/Library/Android/sdk/tools/lib is not supported.  Use -classpath instead.
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

I think this might be related to the java version I am using. Here is the output of java -version:

java version "10" 2018-03-20
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.3 (build 10+46)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.3 (build 10+46, mixed mode)

I have already seen this question on SO, but it recommends downgrading to java 8.

Am I missing anything here? I would appreciate any help.

Answer 1

uiautomatorviewer works fine with Java version 8. You need not downgrade java version to 1.8. Instead add this method to .bash_profile

uiautomator() {
        export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_181.jdk/Contents/Home
        export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/<username>/Library/Android/sdk
        export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$ANDROID_HOME/build-tools:$ANDROID_HOME/tools
        /Users/<username>/Library/Android/sdk/tools/bin/uiautomatorviewer
}

This would set the JAVA_HOME path to 1.8 and includes android platform and build tools to path variable.

Either,

1. Restart your terminal to get the changes reflected or
2. Compile your .bash_profile by . .bash_profile in the current terminal to get it reflected.

Start typing uiautomator in your terminal. It should work !