Unable to start process 'command '/Applications/Android Studio.app/.../bin/java''

Question

After upgrading Android Studio to 2.3, I keep seeing this error when building the project lately.

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

• What went wrong: Execution failed for task ':app:compileRetrolambdaLocalDebug'.

  A problem occurred starting process 'command '/Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java''

• Try: Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

Cleaning and rebuilding did solve the problem. But it is very time consuming having to do this again and again. Any nicer work around?

Edit:

---

Compiling in terminal with $ ./gradlew --stacktrace --info assembleDebug:

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:compileRetrolambdaLocalDebug'.
> A problem occurred starting process 'command '/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_101.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java''

* Try:
Run with --debug option to get more log output.

* Exception is:
org.gradle.api.tasks.TaskExecutionException: Execution failed for task ':app:compileRetrolambdaLocalDebug'.
        at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.executeActions(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:69)
        at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.execute(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:46)
        at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.PostExecutionAnalysisTaskExecuter.execute(PostExecutionAnalysisTaskExecuter.java:35)

        ... 
        ... 
        ... 

        at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.DaemonStateCoordinator$1.run(DaemonStateCoordinator.java:237)
        at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.ExecutorPolicy$CatchAndRecordFailures.onExecute(ExecutorPolicy.java:54)
        at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.StoppableExecutorImpl$1.run(StoppableExecutorImpl.java:40)
Caused by: org.gradle.process.internal.ExecException: A problem occurred starting process 'command '/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_101.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java''
        at org.gradle.process.internal.DefaultExecHandle.setEndStateInfo(DefaultExecHandle.java:197)
        at org.gradle.process.internal.DefaultExecHandle.failed(DefaultExecHandle.java:327)
        at org.gradle.process.internal.ExecHandleRunner.run(ExecHandleRunner.java:86)
        ... 2 more
Caused by: net.rubygrapefruit.platform.NativeException: Could not start '/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_101.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java'
        at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.DefaultProcessLauncher.start(DefaultProcessLauncher.java:27)
        at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.WrapperProcessLauncher.start(WrapperProcessLauncher.java:36)
        at org.gradle.process.internal.ExecHandleRunner.run(ExecHandleRunner.java:68)
        ... 2 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_101.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java" (in directory "/Users/yuchen/Documents/MountainView2/app"): error=7, Argument list too long
        at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.DefaultProcessLauncher.start(DefaultProcessLauncher.java:25)
        ... 4 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: error=7, Argument list too long
        ... 5 more



BUILD FAILED

Compiling in terminal with $ ./gradlew --stacktrace --debug assembleDebug:

15:31:43.654 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter]        ... 2 more
15:31:43.654 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter] Caused by: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_101.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java" (in directory "/Users/yuchen/Documents/MountainView2/app"): error=7, Argument list too long
15:31:43.654 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter]        at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.DefaultProcessLauncher.start(DefaultProcessLauncher.java:25)
15:31:43.655 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter]        ... 4 more
15:31:43.655 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter] Caused by: java.io.IOException: error=7, Argument list too long
15:31:43.656 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter]        ... 5 more
15:31:43.656 [ERROR] [org.gradle.BuildExceptionReporter] 
15:31:43.656 [LIFECYCLE] [org.gradle.BuildResultLogger] 
15:31:43.656 [LIFECYCLE] [org.gradle.BuildResultLogger] BUILD FAILED

Answer 1

We found this happening due to the retrolamdba plugin, the error being in the values of the retrolambda arguments.

Upgrading the plugin fixed the problem. See release notes for version 3.2.5