Android Studio Gradle Could not find gradle-7.4.0.jar - android-studio

Question

I have been dealing with a problem in android studio gradle for hours, and i could not solve it.
I am just trying to build my very first projects but there is a problem with gradle.
This is how my build.gradle file looks like:
plugins {
id 'com.android.application' version '7.4.0' apply false
id 'com.android.library' version '7.4.0' apply false
}
enter image description here
This is the context of problem:
A problem occurred configuring root project 'My Application'.
> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':classpath'.
> Could not find gradle-7.4.0.jar (com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.0).
Searched in the following locations:
https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/build/gradle/7.4.0/gradle-7.4.0.jar
> Could not find builder-7.4.0.jar (com.android.tools.build:builder:7.4.0).
Searched in the following locations:
https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/build/builder/7.4.0/builder-7.4.0.jar
> Could not find bundletool-1.11.4.jar (com.android.tools.build:bundletool:1.11.4).
Searched in the following locations:
https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/build/bundletool/1.11.4/bundletool-1.11.4.jar
> Could not find protos-30.4.0.jar (com.android.tools.analytics-library:protos:30.4.0).
Searched in the following locations:
https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/com/android/tools/analytics-library/protos/30.4.0/protos-30.4.0.jar
Possible solution:
- Declare repository providing the artifact, see the documentation at https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/declaring_repositories.html
I also added the image.
I don't know how to fix this, and any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I've observed the same issue. I've found some ambiguities that might explain what's going on.
If you naviagate to https://maven.google.com/web/index.html#com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.4.0 you'll get a web page that will give you information about com.android.tools.build.gradle-7.4.0. If you hover over the link for the jar or pom file you'll get a different url from the ones that your search indicated: https://dl.google.com/android/maven2/com/android/tools/build/gradle/7.4.0/gradle-7.4.0.jar. Notice that the "/dl/" part is missing. That's at least what my browser was showing me at the bottom of the browser window. Seeing that, I went into my setting.gradle.kts file and edited my pluginManagment repositories section by added the following repository:
maven {
url = uri("https://dl.google.com/android/maven2/")
}
I was then able to build my project without getting an error about not finding the com.android.tools.build.gradle plugin. In my case, I saw a slightly different list of locations of what it was searching for. Mine was failing because it couldn't fine the gradle-7.4.0.pom file, and not the jar file. So, I'm not exactly seeing exactly what you're seeing, but there's a good chance it related since the pom file is normally read before the jar file when resolving plugin artifacts from a repository.
When I was getting the problem, I would copy the link of the repositories searched and paste it into a browser and sure enough I would get an http 404 error using those searched url location. And when I modified the link by removing the "/dl/" part of the link, the file would download. So, you might think that my explanation explains the issue. However, after I got the issue resolved, I reentered the URL that was failing in my browser (the url with the "/dl/" part), but this time it worked correctly without any errors. The only explanation that I can come up with on why the url sometimes works and sometimes fails is that the server or proxy server processing that url request is sometimes offline.
With all of that said, you may run into the next issue. In order to use android gradle 7.4 you must be using an version of android studio greater than Android Studio Dolphin | 2021.3.1 Patch 1. see https://developer.android.com/studio/releases#android_gradle_plugin_and_android_studio_compatibility Unfortunately, it is my understanding that all of the versions of Android Studio, that would be compatible with using android gradle plugin 7.4 are only available as preview Android Studio releases. So if you're developing and restricting yourself to only building code using officially released stable tools, you're stuck using android gradle plugin 7.3.1, until the next version of android studio gets official released.