compilation - Android Studio problem with compiling "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."

Question

I know this question has been asked before, but there wasn't a satisfactory answer, and the last post was three years ago. I am using android studio 3.6.2 in windows 10. Every time I try to compile my program I get the error "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."

Now I know what is causing the error. The R.jar file that was previously compiled cannot be deleted because android studio is locking the file. It is in a folder appuildintermediatescompile_and_runtime_not_namespaced_r_class_jardebug

Now to get around the problem I have been closing down android studio. Then deleting the R.jar, then restarting android studio and then compiling. This process takes a good few minutes and I have to do it every time. Imagine how long it takes to write a program when you have to do this every time.

When this was asked on stack overflow previously suggestions were to Invalid caches / restart, but that is no quicker than what I did above, and only works once. Also tried Clean Project, but that has no effect.

I have used many compilers over the years like visual studio, codeblocks etc but this kind of thing never happened before, so why is android studio so bad? Has anyone found a solution to this problem yet?

Answer 1

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Go to Edit Configurations check that you are not building before each launch. Remove "Build"