Error:(1, 0) Plugin with id 'com.android.application' not found

Updated Answer (Dec. 2, 2020)

Latest Gradle: 6.5

Version check:

./gradlew -v

How to update:

Set URL: ./gradlew wrapper --gradle-version=6.5 --distribution-type=all

Update: ./gradlew wrapper

Latest Android Gradle Plugin: 4.1.0

If you add the following code snippet to the top of your build.gradle file. Gradle will update the build tools.

buildscript {
    repositories {
        google() // For Gradle 4.0+
        maven { url 'https://maven.google.com' } // For Gradle < 4.0
    }

    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.1.0'
    }
}

Read more here: https://developer.android.com/studio/build/index.html and about version compatibility here: https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/gradle-plugin.html#updating-gradle and https://dl.google.com/dl/android/maven2/index.html.

Original Answer

I had this same error, you need to make sure your Gradle version is compatible with your Android Gradle Plugin.

The latest version of Gradle is 2.0 but you need to use 1.12 in order to use the Android Gradle Plugin.

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This can happen if you miss adding the Top-level build file.

Just add build.gradle to top level.

It should look like this

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.
buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.xx.y'
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
}

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In my case, I download the project from GitHub and the Gradle file was missing. So I just create a new project with success build. Then copy-paste the Gradle missing file. And re-build the project is working for me.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/2xJF1.png

---

Root-gradle file:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:x.x.x'
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
}

Gradle-wrapper.properties file:

distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
distributionPath=wrapper/dists
zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-x.x-all.zip

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I am writing this not as a solution meant for many, but for some people who may commit a simple mistake like specifying the wrong url for importing projects from SVN. It is intended for those guys :)

This happened to me when I imported the project from SVN -> automatic prompt by Studio to open the project -> It asked for Gradle location -> D:\Software\Android\gradle-2.5 -> Then the error.

The same project in a different SVN branch works fine with the Gradle plugin and Gradle which I have configured in Studio. I tried changing Android Gradle plugin and Gradle to get it working on the erring branch without any success.

Finally, I figured out that it was my following mistake: I tried importing a specific Application alone instead of importing the application along with dependent library projects. The url which I used for import initially had the Application porject's name at the end. Once I removed it, and specified the parent directory which contained both application project and its dependent project, everything went smooth :)

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I found the problem after one hour struggling with this error message:

I accidentally renamed the root build.gradle to filename in builde.gradle, so Android Studio didn't recognize it anymore.

Renaming it to build.gradle resolved the issue!

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I still got the error

 Could not find com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.0.0.

Problem: jcenter() did not have the required libs

Solution: add google() as repo

buildscript {
    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()

    }
    dependencies {

        classpath "com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.0.0"
    }
}

---

In the project level build.gradle file, I have replaced this line

classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.6.3'

with this one

classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.3.3'

After adding both of those lines, and syncing, everything became fine. Hope this will help someone.

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I was using IntelliJ IDEA 13.1.5 and faced with the same problem after I changed versions of Picasso and Retrofit in dependencies in build.gradle file. I tried use many solutions, but without result. Then I cloned my project from remote git (where I pushed it before changing versions of dependencies) and it worked! After that I just closed current project and imported old project from Gradle file to IntelliJ IDEA again and it worked too! So, I think it was strange bug in intersection of IDEA, Gradle and Android plugin. I hope this information can be useful for IDEA-users or anyone else.

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Go to your grade file where you can see this:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.1.0'


        // NOTE: Do not place your application dependencies here; they belong
        // in the individual module build.gradle files
    }
}

And change classpath to this:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
//        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.1.0'
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle-experimental:0.7.0-alpha1'

        // NOTE: Do not place your application dependencies here; they belong
        // in the individual module build.gradle files
    }
}

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The other answers didn't work for me, I guess something wrong happens between ButterKnife and 3.0.0 alpha5.

However, I found that when I annotated any one sentence, either BUtterKnife or 3.0.0 alpha5, it works normally.

So, you should just avoid the duplication or conflict.

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For future reference: For me, this issue was solely caused by the fact that I wasn't running Android Studio as administrator. I had the shortcut on Windows configured to always run as administrator, but after reinstalling Android Studio, the shortcut was replaced, and so it ran without administrator rights. This caused a lot of opaque errors, including the one in this question.

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This issue happened when I accidently renamed the line

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

on file app/build.gradle to some other name. So, I fixed it by changing it to what it was.

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This just happened to me using Android Studio 1.3.2, however, since I had just created the project, I deleted it and created it again. It seems that it had not been properly created by Android Studio the first time, not even the project folders where as expected.

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If you run a the module task with android plugin 1.2.3 in module directory , the problem appears. Try this:

../gradlew -b ../build.gradle  -c ../settings.gradle  :module:xxx

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Make sure your two build.gradle and settings.gradle files are in the correct directories as stated in https://developer.android.com/studio/build/index.html

Then open "as existing project" in Visual Studio

Gradle is very finicky about this.

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I got this error message after making the following change in my top-level build.gradle to update to the latest version of gradle:

//classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.3.2' old
classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.3.3' //new

I foolishly made the change while I was connected behind a hostile workplace proxy. The proxy caused the .jar files for the new version of gradle to become corrupt. This can be verified by inspecting the jars to see if they are an unusual size or whether they can be unzipped.

In order to fix the mistake, I connected to my network at home (which is not behind a proxy) and did a refresh dependencies from the Terminal:

./gradlew --refresh-dependencies

This caused the newer version of gradle to be re-downloaded and the error no longer occurs.

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Check the spelling, mine was 'com.android.aplication'

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This may also happen when you have both settings.gradle and settings.gradle.kts files are present in project root directory (possibly with the same module included). You should only have one of these files.

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i had similar problem and i did following things to resolve it. i referred to https://developer.android.com/studio/build and copy / pasted these following lines before apply plugin lines

repositories {
    google()
    jcenter()
}

dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.0'
}

}

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[FOR FLUTTER] go to your build Gradle then check if you have three paths

dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.5.0'
    classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.3.2'
    classpath "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-gradle-plugin:$kotlin_version"
}

I somehow removed the android tools classpath and was getting the error.

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module app build.gradle file

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

model{


    android {
        compileSdkVersion 23
        buildToolsVersion  "23.0.2"

        defaultConfig.with {
            applicationId "com.iamsafe"
            minSdkVersion 15
            targetSdkVersion 23





        }
     buildTypes {
            debug {
                minifyEnabled = false
                useProguard = true
                proguardFiles.add(file('proguard-rules.txt'))


            }
        }



    }

}



dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:23.0.2'
    compile files('libs/asmack-android-8-0.8.10.jar')
    compile files('libs/commons-io-2.0.1.jar')
    compile files('libs/httpclient-osgi-4.2.1-sources.jar')
    compile files('libs/httpcore-4.3.2.jar')
    compile files('libs/httpmime-4.1.2.jar')
}


project build.gradle

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.
buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.10'
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
}

---

In this case of issues check below code

dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:**1.5.0**'
}

and gradle-wrapper.properties inside your project directory check below disctributionUrl:

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.9-all.zip

If these are not compatible with each other then you end up in this issue.

For com.android.tools.build:gradle:1.5. you need a version at least 2.8 but if you switch to a higher version like com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.1.0 then you need to update your gradle to 2.9 and above this can be done by changing distributionUrl in gradle-wrapper.properties to 2.9 or higher as below

distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-2.10-all.zip

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If you work on Windows , you must start Android Studio name by Administrator. It solved my problem

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Just make sure you put the http and https proxy correctly when you create the app

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