Android Studio: Gradle: error: cannot find symbol variable

If you are using multiple flavors?

-make sure the resource file is not declared/added both in only one of the flavors and in main.

Example: a_layout_file.xml file containing the symbol variable(s)

src:

flavor1/res/layout/(no file)

flavor2/res/layout/a_layout_file.xml

main/res/layout/a_layout_file.xml

This setup will give the error: cannot find symbol variable, this is because the resource file can only be in both flavors or only in the main.

You shouldn't be importing android.R. That should be automatically generated and recognized. This question contains a lot of helpful tips if you get some error referring to R after removing the import.

Some basic steps after removing the import, if those errors appear:

• Clean your build, then rebuild
• Make sure there are no errors or typos in your XML files
• Make sure your resource names consist of [a-z0-9.]. Capitals or symbols are not allowed for some reason.
• Perform a Gradle sync (via Tools > Android > Sync Project with Gradle Files)