James Montemagno: Fix for Unsupported major.minor version 52.0

So, you just downloaded and installed Xamarin and ready to build your first Android application in C#. You select file -> new Android project and then build and get ready to run it on a simulator and BOOM it has either just deployed a beautiful “hello world” app… or you have some cryptic error message about an appt.exe error or more likely a unsupported version 52.0? WHAT?

99.9% of developers probably had this work just fine, but perhaps you already had Android Studio installed or you accidentally selected that “Install Everything” option in the Android SDK Manager. That is where the issue came from. It is because Xamarin.Android is attempting to use the latest “Android Build-Tools”, which aren’t compatible with Android just yet.

There is a beautiful Technical article that was written in June on how to fix this and also an errors if you have Java JDK 8 installed that you can find here. If you were reading it and still confused on what to install no worried.

Step 1: Open Android SDK Manager

Step 2: See what is installed and follow this guide

Always first tap “Deselect All” so nothing is selected, and then go to town checking items to install or uninstall.

Now, with the Build-Toosl 24.0.x uninstalled and 23.0.x installed you are good to go!