How to Fix Android Gradle Sync Failed

In this tutorial, you'll learn about How to Fix Android Gradle Sync Failed. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices to help you understand and apply this topic effectively.

The Problem

You open an Android project in Android Studio and see:

Gradle sync failed: Could not resolve all dependencies
Connection timed out

Or:

Failed to sync Gradle: The specified Gradle distribution is corrupted

Gradle sync fails when the build system cannot download dependencies, the Gradle wrapper URL is invalid, or Repository URLs are unreachable.

Quick Fix

Step 1: Check Gradle wrapper properties

Open gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties:

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-8.5-bin.zip

Verify the URL points to a valid Gradle release. Replace 8.5 with the correct version for your project.

Step 2: Clean Gradle cache

# Linux / macOS
rm -rf ~/.gradle/caches/

# Windows (PowerShell)
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force $env:USERPROFILE\.gradle\caches

Then restart the sync.

Step 3: Update repositories in build.gradle

repositories {
    google()
    mavenCentral()
    // maven { url "https://jitpack.io" } // only if needed
}

google() must be declared in project-level settings.gradle or build.gradle. Missing it causes all Android dependency resolution to fail.

Step 4: Check internet connection and proxy

curl -I https://services.gradle.org

Expected:

HTTP/2 200

If behind a corporate proxy, configure it in gradle.properties:

systemProp.http.proxyHost=proxy.example.com
systemProp.http.proxyPort=8080
systemProp.https.proxyHost=proxy.example.com
systemProp.https.proxyPort=8080

Step 5: Invalidate caches and restart Android Studio

File > Invalidate Caches / Restart > Invalidate and Restart

This clears Android Studio's internal caches, which often resolves stale sync state.

Step 6: Use a specific Gradle distribution version

./gradlew wrapper --gradle-version 8.5

This updates gradle-wrapper.properties to point to Gradle 8.5 and downloads it.

Step 7: Check for conflicting dependencies

./gradlew :app:dependencies

Look for version conflicts. If two libraries pull different versions of the same dependency, use:

configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy { force 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.10.1' }
}

Prevention

• Always use ./gradlew (Gradle wrapper) instead of a system-installed Gradle.
• Pin Gradle and AGP (Android Gradle Plugin) to compatible versions.
• Run ./gradlew --stop before sync to clear stale daemons.

Common Mistakes with gradle sync failed

1. Overlapping type class instances that cause GHC to reject the program with ambiguous dispatch errors
2. Non-exhaustive pattern matches that compile with warnings then crash at runtime
3. Misunderstanding that String is [Char] with poor performance for large text operations

These mistakes appear frequently in real-world Android code. DodaTech's contributors have identified these patterns through analysis of open-source projects and production systems.

Practice Exercise

Write a pure function that safely divides two integers using Maybe, then test it with edge cases like division by zero and negative numbers.

This exercise reinforces the concepts covered in this guide. Try implementing it before checking online solutions.

FAQ

DodaTech Tool Reference

Use Doda Browser's Developer Tools to inspect network requests when debugging Gradle sync issues behind a proxy. The DodaZIP archiver can help compress and transfer Gradle cache directories between machines for team troubleshooting.