Issue in importing Oppia as a bazel project

[ShankhanilSaha]

Operating System

Windows 11

Android Studio Version

Narwhal 3 2025.1.3

RAM size

16 GB

Free disk space

380GB

Which step are you stuck on?

I was following the setup wiki and i think theres some issue with the bazel for android studio plugin.
I selected the oppia-android.bazelproject under "Import project view file" but i get a prompt which says to use "Copy external"
option as the project view file is not present in opensource\oppia-android (it is present in opensource\oppia-android) and when i do use the copy external version i am able to select the project view file but then clicking on next does not do anything and i am just stuck on that screen.

Error Log

Cannot Use Project View File
You must choose a project view file under
C:\Users\shank\AndroidStudioProjects\opensource\oppia-android.
To use an external project view, please use the 'Copy external' option.

Approaches already used to resolve the issue

I have tried following the steps in a different device, different operating system, but at the end its the same everytime.
Also thought of using just the Bazel plugin but its only for IntelliJ Ultimate and not supported on android studio.

Additional information

No response

[adhiamboperes]

Hi @ShankhanilSaha, I think this could be an issue with compatibility between Narwhal and the Bazel plugin. You can visit this page, and it will show you on the top right if they are compatible.

I use Jellyfish | 2023.3.1 Patch 2, and I know some people use Ladybug.

[ShankhanilSaha]

I checked on the website, it does show that it's compatible with Narwhal. But still i installed Jellyfish 2023.3.1 Patch 2, unfortunately i got stuck once again on the same page.
Also i verified my bazelisk/bazel installation just in case, that does not seem to be the issue.
Tried multiple versions of bazel for android-studio plugin as well.

[adhiamboperes]

Hi @theMr17, are you farmiliar with this issue, or have any suggestions for a workaround?

@ShankhanilSaha, I am tagging @theMr17 since he most recently set up the project on Windows.

[theMr17]

Hi @ShankhanilSaha, it looks like you're trying to use the Bazel plugin in Android Studio running directly on Windows. However, as mentioned here, the Bazel plugin isn't supported on Windows.

To proceed, you'll need to set up Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) by following the instructions here.
Once WSL is installed, install Android Studio inside WSL using the steps outlined here.

After setting up Android Studio, follow these steps to install and configure Bazel within WSL.

Once everything is set up, you'll be able to import and work with the Bazel project in Android Studio just like before.

Please feel free to reach out here if you encounter any other issues!

[ShankhanilSaha]

Hi @theMr17 thanks for the help, I actually figured out what the issue was. By default the end of line sequence used in the oppia-android.bazelproject file is CRLF which sometimes may cause issues while setting it up in windows and maybe also in linux as i did try using a live linux based environment and it did not work there also. I changed the end of line sequence to LF and it worked
@adhiamboperes should i also open a issue or a PR updating the setup wiki stating this for people who might face this issue in future while setting up?
Also its compatible in latest version of Android Studio downgrading to Jellyfish is not neccessary

[adhiamboperes]

Hi @ShankhanilSaha, thanks for sharing your findings. Yes, you can create an issue to add this to the FAQ section of the installation page

[ShankhanilSaha]

Opened the issue.

[ShankhanilSaha]

Hi @adhiamboperes, i have successfully completed all setup processes both on my windows and linux installations. I observed a few things which were causing errors during the bazel build.

1. It needs Android SDK Build-Tools version 34.0.0 specifically.
2. It needs "Android 15.0, API Level 35" to build.
3. By default android-studio uses a proxy to download stuff, which was causing issues with maven.
4. While building we need to go to edit configurations and disable mobile-install for it to build successfully.

None of these seem like device specific except maybe the proxy one.
I would be happy to open a PR updating the FAQ/ Build guide pages in the repo with confirmation from others who recently setup the project if they also faced problems similar to mine. To help people who are going to try to set this project up.

[adhiamboperes]

Ah, thnks for noting these. We did recently update the project's build tools and target API, but missed the documentation. It would be great to file this as an issue. On the issue we can review and discuss any additional things that need to be changed so that the PR can be comprehensive.

[ShankhanilSaha]

I opened a issue regarding this.

[gurnoorpannu]

I am also having difficulty building the project,
I am on Mac(m4)
I followed the “Installing Oppia Android” wiki step-by-step
But the build keeps failing with these errors:
Bazel is using the internal go_sdk instead of my installed Go 1.22
Missing Go stdlib packages: maps, slices, math/rand/v2, net/netip, etc.
Bazel also tries to use remote_jdk11 even though JDK 17 is installed
Final error shown is:
Misconfigured toolchains: @bazel_tools//tools/jdk:remote_toolchain …
remote_jdk11 …
I tried configuring .bazelrc to point to system GOROOT and JAVA_HOME, ran bazel clean --expunge, bazel sync, but the issue persists.

Could you please guide me on the correct toolchain configuration for building Oppia Android on Apple Silicon (M4)?

also getting these,
ERROR: /Users/gurnoor/StudioProjects/oppia-android/BUILD.bazel:77:35: While resolving toolchains for target //:oppia_dev_binary: invalid registered toolchain '@bazel_tools//tools/jdk:toolchain_java17': no such target '@bazel_tools//tools/jdk:toolchain_java17': target 'toolchain_java17' not declared in package 'tools/jdk' defined by /private/var/tmp/_bazel_gurnoor/acf25ea92611facc96859ea05b1804e6/external/bazel_tools/tools/jdk/BUILD (did you mean 'toolchain_java10'? Tip: use query "@bazel_tools//tools/jdk:*" to see all the targets in that package)
ERROR: Analysis of target '//:oppia_dev_binary' failed; build aborted:
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.062s
INFO: 0 processes.
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully (0 packages loaded, 0 targets configured)

[ShankhanilSaha]

Hi @gurnoorpannu can you check once whether you have installed the correct version of bazel, as this repository requires an older version. You can use bazelisk and install the correct version mentioned in the wiki and setup an alias named bazel to use it (setting up alias is important as while building, bazel will be the command executed and not bazelisk).
Also if that does not work also try the quoted notes.

It needs Android SDK Build-Tools version 34.0.0 specifically.
It needs "Android 15.0, API Level 35" to build.
By default android-studio uses a proxy to download stuff, which was causing issues with maven.
While building we need to go to edit configurations and disable mobile-install for it to build successfully.

And finally also maybe updating WORKSPACE file for a workaround to point to your correct sdk version manually before running tests and building.

[ShankhanilSaha]

Also you can refer to #5995 additional context section for any reference as it contains notes from MacOS setup.