I am working with Eclipse and having trouble with the emulator and the Location Map plugin. Let me begin by specifying: 1. There are no errors in the project clean/build. 2. I have gone through the steps to get my API from Google and added it to the application. I have also downloaded and added the Play APK Expansion, Google Play Services, google-play-services.jar, gcm.jar and android-support-v4.jar to my project. 3. I am working on a Mac with a fresh install of the latest version of all programs. 4. I have developed several apps with Buzztouch but am more of a designer than a "writer of code," so if you leave a reply please break down your suggestions into steps that I may follow. MUCH appreciated. So, with that said here is a description of the issues. EMULATOR TIME OUT I am working with Eclipse but using Blue Stacks as the emulator because the Eclipse emulator would not work (i.e. launch, connect, load the app). Yes, I tried all of the suggestions from the Buzztouch forums and How-Tos and configured it every which way. It simply will not function. Blue Stacks' connection with Eclipse is inconsistent, but I have been able to get the app to launch successfully in that emulator one time. However, I had to make adjustments to the code based on what I saw there and I have not been able to relaunch it since. Blue Stacks will boot up and show me the previous version of the app, and Eclipse will identify and connect with Blue Stacks in the "Devices" view. I have also gone into the Eclipse properties and extended the time limit for launching an app, so that should not be the issue. Any suggestions for making this functional/more efficient? LOCATION MAP The one time that I was able to successfully launch the app in Blue Stacks the Location Map plugin which has about 65 locations pre-loaded showed the pins above a gray grid and the Google logo in the bottom left with no map. NOTE: This was after already having obtained and added the API. I saw a forum post referencing the possibility of changing mapView to webView to resolve this issue, but how and where to do that was not clear. I also saw that some kind of error had been happening with Android developers with this plugin in general, has that been resolved yet? Also, this app is meant to be totally functional offline, is that possible if I'm having to rely on Google Maps with my Android build? FINAL QUESTION I have my minimum SDK version set to 8. It seems to be the only setting that will let Blue Stacks load the app. I have the Google / Android SDKs loaded for 8, 10, 11, 16, 17 and 18. What is the optimum SDK for running the emulator and which is best for releasing the app? Thank you for your advice in advance. I wouldn't be able to get this far and even describe the issues without the wealth of information available in this community.

Hello! Lots of stuff here, so lets just dive in: * Maps : Unless you have the Google Maps for Android API v1 key, it simply won't work. And those are no longer available. David @ Buzztouch is super close to releasing the new Android code that supports the new API key. There is a workaround, which is basically to create an HTML webpage with a Google Map that has multiple locations specified. The answer is along the lines of what can be found here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/imageapis/ * APIs : The minimum requirement for your project is Google API 8, but 11 seems to be working better lately for some reason. You can use 8 or newer, but each each step closer to newer prevents some of the older users from installing your app. The one you choose ultimately depends on how many users you want to reach. API 11 gives you about 96% of all users, if I recall correctly. At a minimum, you'll want (NEED) to use 8. * Emulators : Super pain in the butt. I tried using Blue Stacks a long time ago, and it didn't work well for me. I've had success using the Emulator on a Mac, but sometimes it doesn't work, and I have to reboot to get things working. All I can say is keep trying. Sometimes it's helpful to launch the emulator before you build and run the project, because then it's already up and running. Of course, testing with a real device is preferable, so if you have one, you should be using that. This all probably doesn't help much, but maybe it does? Let me know what questions you still have, and we can go from there. Mark

Hi @nmcmap, First let me say thank you for explaining your questions. Great job! I am not familiar with Blue Stacks, but I would at least run Google API 3. I believe buzztouch will be changing to this minimal requirement from 2.2 to 3 in the near future. I would suggest trying a new emulator or deleting your App off the existing emulator. I don't believe you can be totally offline with maps but I could be wrong. LA

For the emulator, have you tried my suggestion here? http://www.buzztouch.com/forum/thread.php?tid=AC128AF4580B08560CA672F&fid=06DB0BCB08E3333&sortColumn=FT.id&sortUpDown=DESC&currentPage=1

Thank you for your replies. @GoNorthWest I appreciate your clarification. I'm going to try the workaround and now that I know that the maps are simply not going to work. I'm also looking for a 3rd party alternative that can display a custom map without relying on an internet connection. Any suggestions? @LA Thank you. FYI, the Location Map plugin does in fact work offline when you pre-load the locations in iOS at least. It's pretty great. @chris1 Thanks, I had not seen this. Can you please explain more specifically where I take the following step: "if I simply ran "./adb kill-server" and then "./adb start-server" in Terminal from my platform-tools directory" Not sure I understand how to do that exactly.

Sure thing - I wrote that assuming you're on a Mac. If windows, it would probably be something like: Open the command prompt window, change to your sdk/platform-tools directory, and type: "adb kill-server" then "adb start-server". If you're on a Mac by chance, try out my AppleScript solution - it should make it a lot easier.