Cannot start android emulator64 due to Qt unable to load xcb

Question

I cannot start the (android) emulator64-x86. It always fails with:

--> ./emulator64-x86 -avd loli -gpu off       
This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "xcb"
in "".

Available platform plugins are: linuxfb, minimal, offscreen, xcb.

Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
zsh: abort      ./emulator64-x86 -avd loli -gpu off

Every forum thread I found on thw problem was to run ldd on the emulator64 and the XCB library to check for missing dependencies:

--> ldd emulator64-x86                 
    linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffefb048000)
    librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f3bfefb5000)
    libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007f3bfec75000)
    libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so.1 (0x00007f3bfe9e9000)
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f3bfe7e5000)
    libQt5Widgets.so.5 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Widgets.so.5 (0x00007f3bfdf9f000)
    libQt5Gui.so.5 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Gui.so.5 (0x00007f3bfd838000)
    libQt5Core.so.5 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5 (0x00007f3bfd14d000)
    libQt5Svg.so.5 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Svg.so.5 (0x00007f3bfcef8000)
    libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f3bfcb73000)
    libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f3bfc828000)
    libutil.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00007f3bfc625000)
    libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f3bfc407000)
    libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f3bfc1ef000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f3bfbe39000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f3bff1bd000)
    libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007f3bfbc11000)
    libGLX.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLX.so.0 (0x00007f3bfb9e0000)
    libGLdispatch.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLdispatch.so.0 (0x00007f3bfb72a000)
    libpng16.so.16 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng16.so.16 (0x00007f3bfb4f7000)
    libharfbuzz.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libharfbuzz.so.0 (0x00007f3bfb258000)
    libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f3bfb03e000)
    libicui18n.so.57 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.57 (0x00007f3bfabca000)
    libicuuc.so.57 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicuuc.so.57 (0x00007f3bfa825000)
    libpcre2-16.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre2-16.so.0 (0x00007f3bfa5b8000)
    libdouble-conversion.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdouble-conversion.so.1 (0x00007f3bfa3a7000)
    libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00007f3bfa093000)
    libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007f3bf9e8f000)
    libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007f3bf9c89000)
    libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0x00007f3bf9a77000)
    libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00007f3bf97c2000)
    libgraphite2.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgraphite2.so.3 (0x00007f3bf9595000)
    libicudata.so.57 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicudata.so.57 (0x00007f3bf7b18000)
    libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007f3bf78a6000)
    libbsd.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbsd.so.0 (0x00007f3bf7691000)

And for LibXCB:

--> ldd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 
    linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffc465d8000)
    libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007f68c727c000)
    libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007f68c7076000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f68c6cc0000)
    libbsd.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbsd.so.0 (0x00007f68c6aab000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f68c76a8000)
    librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f68c68a3000)
    libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f68c6685000)

Additional details:

• Android emulator version 27.1.7.0 (build_id 4581633) (CL:b5ec07662db0f9d8644e5fbda7040053a8741bfd)
• Debian SID x64

So it seems that all dependencies are OK. How can I debug that issue further ? Any idea how can I make the emulator work ?

It turned out I can run QT with debug logging:

QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1 ./emulator64-x86 -avd loli -gpu off

So I it fails because of:

Cannot load library /home/svetlin/software/android/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins/platforms/libqxcb.so: (/home/svetlin/software/android/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins/platforms/libqxcb.so: symbol _ZN26QPlatformIntegrationPlugin6createERK7QStringRK11QStringList, version Qt_5 not defined in file libQt5Gui.so.5 with link time reference)

Answer 1

I tried every possible solution I could find on the net but I still got:

Cannot load library 
/home/darkstar/android/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins/platforms/libqxcb.so: 
(/lib64/libQt5XcbQpa.so.5: version `Qt_5_PRIVATE_API' not found 
(required by /home/darkstar/android/emulator/lib64/qt/plugins/platforms/libqxcb.so))

This application failed to start because it could not find or load the 
Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "".

The error message is actually misleading. In my '/lib64' folder, I do have a file 'libQt5XcbQpa.so.5' and it links to the shared lib 'libQt5XcbQpa.so.5.10.1'.

This is not the correct version. All of the correct libs are actually stored at:

~/android/emulator/lib64/qt/lib

If you include the above path as part of '$LD_LIBRARY_PATH', the emulator will run.

Answer 2

For Android SDK version 30.3.5.0 build_id 7033400 it turned out to be a bug. This version requires directory structure properly created at $HOME/.android for successful startup.

In order to create the directory structure you have to run the emulator with -writable-system once. For example, suppose you've created an avd named 'test', then you can start the emulator as follows:

/opt/android-sdk/emulator/emulator -no-window -writable-system -avd test

Once it's created you don't need the option any longer.

/opt/android-sdk/emulator/emulator -no-window -avd test