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I've recently installed Visual Studio Community 2015 and I've been following an MSDN tutorial "Build cross-platform apps with Xamarin". When its time to design the look of the app and I select the Main.axml file in the Resources\layout folder, the Android designer fails with:

The installed Android SDK is too old. Version 24.3.4 or newer is required. Please update to the latest version.

I've done a lot of searching and found that one of the newer versions of Android SDK caused the Xamarin Android designer to fail. I did find a version 24.4.1 that suggests this designer problem is fixed.

How do I update this part of Visual Studio (i.e. Xamarin.Android)? Here is a snippet of my install on Windows 7: enter image description here

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
121

Tools --> Options --> Xamarin

Under "iOS Settings" and "Android Settings" there is a link for "Check Now" next to the Updates settings

enter image description here

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  • Thank you! This fires up a wizard and shuts down Visual Studio and eventually everything gets updated. I restarted VS and the Android designer is now properly initiallized when I select Main.axml. This is definitely not "our father's Visual Studio" anymore!
    – John Adams
    Commented Nov 20, 2015 at 4:00
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    In recent version there is "Other" node under Xamarin option. Click on Other node to check for updates.
    – Gautam Jain
    Commented May 24, 2016 at 6:09
  • This worked for me when auto updates continuously failed. Ended up with about 4 xamarin update icons in taskbar.
    – ComeIn
    Commented Jul 5, 2016 at 0:50
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    I found that this made it even worse - now its demanding Android SDK v25.1.3 or later ! Android Studio continues to run fine, and Android SDK Manager only knows about Android SDKs upto v24. This wouldn't be so bad, but I just want to knock up my first dumb basic Android app... and Xamarin won't let me !!
    – Mike Gledhill
    Commented Oct 18, 2016 at 9:49
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    This is no longer there in VS 2017 ??
    – Hendy Irawan
    Commented Aug 24, 2017 at 15:55
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You might want to update to Beta release if you need the latest components -

Goto VS 2015 -> Tools -> Option -> Xamarin -> Others -> Check Now

enter image description here

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They moved the "Check Now" into the harder-to-find Tools/Options/Xamarin/Other. We must always be on guard when dealing with the

Other

Watch for the exciting new location

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4

In newer Version of Visual studio this option is available in Other node

Goto VS 2015 -> Tools -> Options -> Xamarin -> Other -> Check Now

enter image description here

Here you can choose between Alpha, Beta or Stable versions of xamarin for Visual Studio.

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1
  • They moved the "Check Now". Harder to find. Must click "Other" on the "Xamarin" tree in Options
    – Steve Rawlins
    Commented Oct 28, 2016 at 17:40
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Apparently, my problem was solved after installing SDK Platform for Android 6.0 or API 23. API 24 or higher i.e Android 7.0 (Nougat) didnt run. If still not solved then install SDK Platform for even lower APIs like 22,21 ... Hope it helps.

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