Error Execution failed for task app clean Unable to delete file

Question

I m trying to rebuild my Android Studio Gradle project  containing mostly Kotlin code   but it started to throw an UnableToDeleteFileException during the cleaning rebuilding process   Execution failed for task   app clean    gt  Unable to delete file  C  Users User KotlinGameEngine app build intermediates exploded-aar com android support appcompat-v7 23 0 1 jars classes jar   This started happening after I tried to change my project s package structure  Unfortunately  I did it by renaming and moving the source folders rather than refactoring through Android Studio  which was a bad idea   I ve been searching for a solution to this problem all day  and these are the things I have tried to no avail    Doing a Gradle sync  Reinstalling Java JRE and Java SDK  Reinstalling the latest version of Android Studio  1 4   Rolling back to the previous AS version  1 3   Invalidating the AS cache and restarting  Deleting the gradle and  gradle directories in the project directory  Deleting the  gradle directory in my user directory  Running gradlew clean from the AS terminal  Manually copying the sources over to a new project  weird that it somehow persists across projects       Things that I ve tried with a little success  but only let me perform one more clean and rebuild before the error occurs again    Closing AS  manually deleting the build files  and opening it again  Killing the java exe process while AS is running  this could technically be done every time  but it s tedious and slows down the build process    So it seems that compile the Java process may put a lock on the build files for some reason  but it might also be something to do with Kotlin  I have a  more mature  Java Android project that I m working on  though I can t reproduce this error when cleaning it  It seems to only happen to my Kotlin project   Update   I ve found that the problem is being caused by the Kotlin Android plugin  The problem disappears when I remove apply plugin   kotlin-android  from the module s build gradle file and comes back when I reinsert it  Feel free to offer any insight into this   Update 2   The last update isn t the cause  I found that if a project contains a Kotlin file then rebuilding and cleaning fails  It continues to fail  even if all the Kotlin files are removed  until the background Java process is killed  meaning it has some kind of lock on the build files  I submitted a bug here with more details and steps to reproduce the bug  KT-9440

User · Answer

In Android Studio 3 0  I had the same issue  This fixed it    Close Studio Delete projectRoot build  and projectRoot app build  Restart Studio

User · Answer

the thing that worked for me was to close visual studio code and open it again     i guess the apk was folder was opened somewhere in code       so just try it might work for you as well

User · Answer

After I posted a bug report to the Kotlin bug tracker  I was notified of Issue 61300 on the AOSP tracker  That seems to be the cause  Since there s nothing I can do at the moment  I ll mark this question as answered  and I ll update the answer if the bug is fixed   In the meantime  if you re running Windows  I believe I ve found a workaround  You ll need to download LockHunter  at your own risk of course   then add the following to your module s gradle build file  replacing the lockhunter variable with your path to LockHunter exe   task clean type  Exec        ext lockhunter      C   LockHunter exe        def buildDir   file new File  build        commandLine  cmd     lockhunter     delete     silent   buildDir     This causes LockHunter to forcefully and silently unlock and delete the build files when the app clean task runs

User · Answer

In my case node js was using some resources in build folder  my app in reactnative   So I killed node js and it solved

User · Answer

For me  the culprit is adb holding onto the apk file since I utilise it to install and start the application on my physical device through command line   So simply      Task Manager   End process adb exe   And then the file is free to be deleted and the project may be cleaned

User · Answer

I am using Android Studio 3 0 Beta 7  Clean Project  Invalidate caches  restart studio did not work but Updating Kotlin version to 1 1 51 and restart studio solved this issue for me

User · Answer

The solution is quite easy   This is one of the solution which worked for me      It might be possible that your project s app build outputs apk   folder is opened    so just close this folder and rebuild your project  and it will be solved

User · Answer

I was facing same issue on Android Studio 2 2 preview 1  solution by  AndresSuarez was correct but for some reasons I couldn t find JAVA TM process in my task manager  So I tried the following solution and it worked -  Open command prompt and type TASKKILL  F  IM java exe  This will kill all JAVA TM processes automatically  Now re-compile the app again  it will work   Additionally  you can create a  bat file  add the above code in it and run it every time you face the issue

User · Answer

As suggested in the bug report  uncommenting the line  idea jars nocopy false   in the idea properties file has solved the issue for me   Note that this needs to be done every time Android Studio updates

User · Answer

If you are using Android Studio 2 0 Beta  this issue might appear  more likely if you are working on NTFS filesystem  and it seems like the  Instant Run  is the culprit  Search for  Instant Run  in settings and uncheck the box   I have filed an issue on the bug tracker

User · Answer

I just solved this exact problem for myself   The problem was that somebody else had created the file so even though I have admin rights on the computer I was unable to make changes to the file or files  You need to go into the properties of the file or folder and change the ownership or add ownership  This web page  explains it well step by step what you need to do   Once I did the above  I found the file in file explorer and manually extracted it  I don t think it s needed in the android studio project if it was trying to delete it anyway

User · Answer

I solved with command    taskkill  F  IM java exe   and then   gradle assembleDebug

User · Answer

I had the same problem and I solved it by moving project folder into ext4 partition

User · Answer

For my case  I resolve it by -  First  close the app if it is running in the emulator  Then run the command gradle --stop in the Terminal in Android studio  Then clean project and rebuild project

User · Answer

I solved this one in my ubuntu like this    Check for the processes running in your system Ubuntu  like in task manager in windows   Ubuntu terminal command to list out all processes running  ----   gnome-system-monitor  Terminate or end the JAVA and ANDROID processes in the list  Again start the studio and import project    Its works for me without any problems  Hope this helps     I thought this is the problem with the process that are already created and Duplicated

User · Answer

Deleting the directory intermediates is a quick fix for problem    The directory will be rebuilt when the project is rebuilt

User · Answer

I had the same error  tried multiple ways but the solution worked for me was to delete build folders from  android and  android app directories    run react-native run-android worked for me

User · Answer

I had the same problem and this worked for me    close Android Studio  delete intermediates directory  as long as Android Studio is opened  this directory can t be deleted  open Android Studio again

User · Answer

i simply run cmd command -   gradlew clean   And it fix the issue

User · Answer

I solved it by global searching the missing directory in the project  then delete any files containing that keyword  it can clean successfully after I remove all the build and  externalNativeBuild directories manually

User · Answer

if you re still having issues then update to the latest version of Android Studio its 2 1 as of now   might be it was a bug with older version of Android Studio  Its resolved for me now

User · Answer

Cleaning the project in Android studio and running again fixed the issue  May be do  Make Project  as well

User · Answer

react native devs  run  sudo cd android  amp  amp    gradlew clean   and if you want release apk  sudo cd android  amp  amp    gradlew assembleRelease   Hope it will help someone

User · Answer

I had this problem in Android Studio 2 3   I simply restarted Android Studio and after that I could clean without complaints

User · Answer

For me  this happened because of an active debugging process  So  before cleaning or rebuilding  make sure to kill all active processes  To nail down the success  execute Invalidate Caches Restart

User · Answer

For me it helps when I Exit Android Studio  click one more time Clean Project  it appears the same error  and next click Make Project - after that of course Run  app  button in Android Studio

User · Answer

Though this has already been answered  I came from a non-android project and found this  but it could not solve my issue  If someone does see this error  delete the  build  folder manually through your file manager  For me  this repaired the code failing to compile in Kotlin

User · Answer

Find programs who used app build outputs apk folder  then just delete folder    I think Android Studio have to delete old apk folder before rebuilding

User · Answer

I killed all the java TM processes in the task manager and it let me to  rebuild

User · Answer

I had the same issue after moving my project from D  to G  drive but disk checking solved my issue  I used chkdsk  f  r  x G     here some command line switches were used      F Fixes errors on the disk    R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information  implies  F     X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary  implies  F   important   Note   X is important because it will dismount the drive and you can manually delete the build directory of your project   now rebuild the project

User · Answer

Try           File -  Invalidate Caches and Restart  This worked for me

User · Answer

Another application that can be using the resources is apparently Android Studio s Kotlin REPL  I closed that  and then I could build again no problem

User · Answer

If you are testing with a local backend  java servlet on local google app engine  the running process blocks some files  So you are not able to live deploy  So in this case you can solve this by stopping the local backend before starting clean or build  You find the option under  Run -  Stop backend

User · Answer

simple solution     in android or any jetbrains products when you click to you will find  invalidate cache and restart   click on it and all the problems will be solved

User · Answer

Follow these Steps From Build Option tab  1  Clean Project 2  Rebuild Project 3  Make Project

User · Answer

This issue appeared to me in android studio 2 0 stable channel and the solution was due to a problem happened while updating my android studio i solved this by installing a fresh android studio  after deleting all old files for the old installation  and to keep the very nice feature of Instant Run

User · Answer

I have tried to remove all the Java services but still it is failing while executing the gradlew clean build command from IntelliJ terminal  I even verified the other applications I have opened somewhere the same path which I am trying the delete  But could not find any of such  So  finally restarted the IntelliJ IDE and able to proceed build smoothly

User · Answer

Some times intermediates creates problem so delete it and Rebuild project  OR  simply run cmd command -   gradlew clean  in your project folder in work space    its work for me

User · Answer

My Solution for this was very very simple   if you are using Windows   1- Close Android Studio  2- Run Android Studio as Administrator  3- That is it

User · Answer

try to remove these files manually In my case I just removed all build directories from project and subprojects

User · Answer

Clean project from Terminal using this command gradlew clean

[android] Error: Execution failed for task ':app:clean'. Unable to delete file

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