If you have setup the Android development environment for React Native as instructed, and were trying to run your first React Native Android app, but get the "failed to find Build Tools" error:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred configuring project ':app'.
> failed to find Build Tools revision 23.0.1

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 35.317 secs
Could not install the app on the device, read the error above for details.
Make sure you have an Android emulator running or a device connected and have
set up your Android development environment:
https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/android-setup.html

it simply means there is a mismatch in the Android Build Tools installed on your system and the configuration file of your React Native app - the config file has an entry for 23.0.1, but you might have 23.0.3 or something else on your system.

The solution to fixing this problem is to either:

  1. Update the build.gradle file to use the version of Android Build Tools installed on your system
  2. Install the missing 23.0.1 Build Tools.

To update the entry on the build.gradle file, open anroid/app/build.gradle, and look for the entry buildToolsVersion "23.0.1", and replace 23.0.1 with the version you have on your system.

To install Build Tools 23.0.1, open the Android SDK Manager, and select Android SDK Build-tools 23.0.1 and click "Install packages".

Now, what's my personal choice?

I have installed 23.0.1, along with the later versions, so that I don't have to update the build.gradle file every time I do react-native init.

android sdk build tools

As of this writing, the React Native generator uses Build Tools 23.0.1 in the build.gradle file, unless there is a reason I know of, I am OK with using the default 23.0.1.

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