Issue

On macOS Catalina 10.15.5, Android Studio 4.1.2, I try to start the emulator from the command line.

% ~/Library/Android/sdk/tools/emulator -list-avds
Pixel_XL_API_30
% ~/Library/Android/sdk/tools/emulator -avd Pixel_XL_API_30
PANIC: Missing emulator engine program for 'x86' CPU.

But I get an error saying PANIC: Missing emulator engine program for 'x86' CPU.

Solution

The cause was that the path to emulator had changed, so don't use ...../Android/Sdk/tools/emulator but instead ....../Android/Sdk/emulator/emulator.

Refer to the User guide: Start the emulator from the command line.

% ~/Library/Android/sdk/emulator/emulator -avd Pixel_XL_API_30

You can set the environment variable through your user settings in the operating system, for example, in your .bashrc file on Linux, or .zshrc on macOS.

export PATH="$HOME/Library/Android/sdk/emulator:$PATH"

Restart the terminal, or after running source ~/.zshrc, just use emulator directly.

% emulator -avd Pixel_XL_API_30

Updated Sep 01, 2021