Which one should be taken into account, Android emulator or device?

Question

The app, that i am now developing, works on device properly, as i want, however it does not run on Android emulator at all and i cannot get the issue just by analyzing LogCat outputs. So should i just keep testing it on real device or should fixing the issue on emulator be my first purpose ?? Thanks.

Edit : Output of LogCat : http://pastebin.com/HCei0LVp

Depends on the target of your application. check whether the android versions of the android device and the emulator do not match. I can try helping to debug the issue. — Boris Strandjev, Mar 12 '12 at 16:47
i'm building against the version 2.3.3 and the device is also the version 2.3.6 — NotCamelCase, Mar 12 '12 at 16:51
And what is the version of the emulator (the emulator version is not necessarily the same as the version of you application). — Boris Strandjev, Mar 12 '12 at 16:53
it's 2.3 as well. the device on which i tested was also brand-new device. — NotCamelCase, Mar 12 '12 at 16:56
and what is the problem you get on the emulator? Can you share it here please? — Boris Strandjev, Mar 12 '12 at 16:57
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/8794/discussion-between-boris-strandjev-and-berkantk) — Boris Strandjev, Mar 12 '12 at 17:15

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:48

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I'd try to fix it, because if it's not working on emulator so it has an error which may occur on other devices...

answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:48

yahya

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:50

There are many Android devices out there. Just because your app runs on one doesn't mean it will run on all. Generally if it won't run on the emulator you're going to have issues with various devices in the wild.

Logcat is one of many tools to allow you to diagnose and debug your application. Have you tried simply stepping through the debugger? Inspect the stack trace if it's crashing?

Post your specific issue(s) and you can probably get some help here.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:50

Some apps just won't run 100% on the emulator, for example, if it uses the accelerometer. If the reason that it doesn't run is because it uses a hardware feature that the emulator does not support, then I think it is perfectly fine to use the actual device for testing.

If, the reason it is not running on the emulator is because it crashes or something like that, then you should definitely think about trying to fix it on the emulator. You will inevitably run into problems down the road (with different devices or versions of the OS).

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:50

You should make it work on the device, as you probably want users to install your app in their devices.

However, just because it works on your device, it doesn't mean that it runs in all devices. More important, if it doesn't work on your emulator, you should check out why it isn't working in the emulator.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:50

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Well, the emulator might have some flaws, but you should not just dismiss it. The emulator is tested far more than your application, so objectively it's more likely that there is a bug in your code than in the emulator.

It's very possible that you have a race condition in your code, which makes it work under some specific conditions and crash under other conditions. That way it may work just fine on the device that you are testing it on, but it could fail on all other types of devices.

answered Mar 12 '12 at 16:50

Guffa

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I've tested by creating all new emulators over days but none of them worked as i wanted, whereas a 1-day android device just ran it. that's what makes me confused mostly.. – NotCamelCase Mar 12 '12 at 16:58

Which one should be taken into account, Android emulator or device?

5 Answers5