Android Debug Build Fails

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

When building a new Ionic app and deploying the APK to an Android device the app fails to start with the error message:

ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED (http://localhost:8080)

I can replicate this issue with the following steps:

  1. ionic start test blank
  2. ionic cordova build android
  3. Deploy the debug APK to the Android device
  4. Open the application

Ionic info:

Ionic:

ionic (Ionic CLI) : 4.1.0 (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ionic)
Ionic Framework : ionic-angular 3.9.2
@ionic/app-scripts : 3.1.11

Cordova:

cordova (Cordova CLI) : 8.0.0
Cordova Platforms : android 7.0.0
Cordova Plugins : cordova-plugin-ionic-keyboard 2.1.2, cordova-plugin-ionic-webview 2.0.3, (and 4 other plugins)

System:

ios-sim : 5.0.13
NodeJS : v8.9.3 (/usr/local/bin/node)
npm : 6.2.0
OS : macOS High Sierra
Xcode : Xcode 9.2 Build version 9C40b

Environment:

ANDROID_HOME : not set

2

This appears to be related to the version of Android. Running the app on an Android device with 4.2 fails with the above error, yet running the same app on a newer version of Android works fine.

Unfortunately I need to target an older Android version. I have tried downgrading the version of cordova-android but with little success.

Anything else I should be looking at?

3

This is caused by:

2.x of this plugin only supports Android 5.x and newer. You will have to use an older version.

4

AFAIK, no Ionic version past v1 supports Android <4.4.

5

Awesome, downgrading cordova-plugin-ionic-webview fixed the issue - many thanks

6

For future readers of this topic:

If the device you are testing on is using Android 4.x (e.g. Android 4.4 KitKat), this article might explain what is going on and how to fix it: https://ionic.zone/debug/ionic-and-android-4