A Bizarre Android Studio Error on Linux: Argument-for-@NotNull-parameter-'messag

Error Message

Argument for @NotNull parameter 'message' of com/android/tools/idea/gradle/project/sync/GradleSyncState.syncFailed must not be null java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Argument for @NotNull parameter 'message' of com/android/tools/idea/gradle/project/sync/GradleSyncState.syncFailed must not be null at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.GradleSyncState.$$$reportNull$$$0(GradleSyncState.java) at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.GradleSyncState.syncFailed(GradleSyncState.java) at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.idea.IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.doPopulateProject(IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.java:135) at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.idea.IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.populate(IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.java:97) at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.idea.IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.access$000(IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.java:39) at com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.idea.IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask$1.run(IdeaSyncPopulateProjectTask.java:86) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager$TaskRunnable.run(CoreProgressManager.java:750) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.lambda$runProcess$1(CoreProgressManager.java:157) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.registerIndicatorAndRun(CoreProgressManager.java:580) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.executeProcessUnderProgress(CoreProgressManager.java:525) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.ProgressManagerImpl.executeProcessUnderProgress(ProgressManagerImpl.java:85) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.runProcess(CoreProgressManager.java:144) at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager$4.run(CoreProgressManager.java:395) at com.intellij.openapi.application.impl.ApplicationImpl$1.run(ApplicationImpl.java:305) at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

Context

These Android projects were originally written on Windows, and I continued development after switching to a Linux environment. After mounting this partition at /media/user/data, I created a symbolic link /home/user/data/ for convenience. I opened the project from this symbolic link, and as a result it failed to build every time. I thought something was wrong with my computer, but Googling it yielded nothing.

By chance I came across a bizarre question on StackOverFlow, # [Android Studio build error on NTFS partition](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52721989/android-studio-build-error-on-ntfs-partition)

I'm having problems building apps on Android Studio. Things work fine when the project is on my ext4 partition, but when I created a new one on my NTFS, I encountered this:

The error disappeared when I restarted Android Studio, but after that I still cannot run my app (the project structure in the sidebar is not displayed properly). I'm using Android Studio 3.2 on Ubuntu 18.04.1.

There was an answer below:

I figured it out. (By mistake, to be honest...)

Let's say you have an NTFS partition mount at /mnt/ntfs, and your project is at /mnt/ntfs/projects/project. Your home partition (ext4) is mounted at /home, your home directory is /home/user and you have a symbolic link at /home/user/projects that points to /mnt/ntfs/projects.

The reason I (and hopefully you too) have encountered this error is that when using Android Studio's "Open Project..." option, I provided the symbolic link (/home/user/projects/project). When trying to provide the real path (/mnt/ntfs/projects/project) the gradle sync succeeded.

So to fix this for now, simply provide the real path. However, this should probably be addressed by IntelliJ or the developers of Gradle.

Solution

So that solved it. Just don't open the project via a symbolic link — Gradle doesn't support symlink folders. Speechless.