Problem with Google Chrome inspector and Android emulator

I recently changed computers and installed the necessary tools for development and debugging. I particularly like debugging with the Google Chrome device inspector because it allows me to observe all aspects of the application that I consider important (functionality of the algorithms, page styles and communication with the server). For testing I usually use Android Studio emulators.

The new computer has newer and more powerful parts than the PC I used to work with and are from the same brand (AMD processor). I am working with the same project that I worked on the other computer, including the same version of Ionic that uses Cordova.

The problem I’m facing is that when I open the Chrome inspector, the app starts crashing in an intense way. It is literally impossible to manipulate it in this way, sometimes I still get the message: “MyApp isn’t responding” and crashes. If I close the inspector everything will be back to normal. This does not happen when I use the inspector with a real smartphone, only with emulators.

Things I’ve tried:

  • Different emulator configurations, I tried to increase the space, number of processing cores and amount of RAM of the emulators, the problem persists regardless of that;
  • Using the app with livereload on and off also does not affect this situation, both cases cause crashes;
  • Different applications. I created another simple app just to test it and it ran smoothly.
  • Different inspectors. With Visual Studio Code I was able to run the app and inspect it without problems, no crashes occurred, but I can’t see all the aspects I want in the same way as in Chrome.

Other information:

  • Emulator with API level 28;

Fixed the problem by deactivating the screencast option in the top left toggle button.