Hardware buttons not showing on Android Emulator (ALSO, App Switcher button (⌘O) from side panel not responding)

Question

I concisely described the problems in the screenshots; read the below description IF needed.

1. The bottom bar on the Android Emulator showing the three hardware buttons (square/circle/triangle = Overview/Home/Back, respectively) suddenly disappeared. They were there the night before. Next morning, poof! Gone.

2. Ok, so the three buttons don't show on the emulator. So then I use the SIDE PANEL which ALSO shows the hardware buttons. HOWEVER, the square Overview button (⌘O) (aka the App Switcher button) in the side panel DOESN'T WORK. This means I can't open the app switcher now (where you see all apps running in the background).

So the hardware buttons on the screen have disappeared, and the side panel (as a backup) that also has these buttons -- well, ITS square Overbutton button (⌘O) doesn't work, so the side panel is not helping either.

I used the AVD manager to add a replica of the device, and it fixed the issues, but then after some days, the same issue occurs again. I'm using MacOS.

Any suggestions? Thanks much!

IMAGE: App Switcher (Overview) button not working

IMAGE: Hardware buttons that look like these no longer showing

Answer 1

I had similar problem like the one you described in issue 1.
I couldn't see 3 buttons on bottom of the screen in Android emulator (with API level 34) no matter what I did in AVD emulator settings.

The solution for emulators with Android API level >= 29 is to change the option for this in settings inside Android OS in emulator:
Inside Android OS -> Settings -> System -> Navigation mode or Gestures -> select 3-button navigation instead of Gesture navigation

If the problem still persists, then You can delete Android emulator and create the same one to reset it with the same API level, or lower API level < 29 before gesture update.
Can also make sure that in AVD settings in hardware profile the checkbox has hardware buttons is unchecked.

I read that there was an update probably since Android 10 Q (API level 29) that added gesture functionality so that swipe gesture can be used instead of 3 main buttons on the bottom of the screen.
So this problem can probably also happen on real smartphones with Android API level >= 29, not only emulators.

Answer 2

Tl;dr: in AVD, edit your device, click "Change" on your hardware profile, then un-select "Has hardware buttons"

For me, this was all I was missing, and after a Cold Boot of my device the 3 hardware buttons showed on the bottom of the emulator again.

Official Android Studio documentation on hardware profile properties:

Input: Has Hardware Buttons

Select this option if your device has hardware navigation buttons. Deselect it if these buttons are implemented in software only. If you select this option, the buttons won’t appear on the screen. You can use the emulator side panel to "press" the buttons, in either case.

If you're using AVD through Android Studio, I would check out the answer to this question, it seems to have more updated screenshots than a lot of answers on here: Android Studio emulator missing hardware buttons

Android Studio version: 2022.3.1