How can I make the Android emulator show the soft keyboard?

Android Problem Overview

I'm debugging an issue with the soft keyboard display not displaying when it should. However, I don't have a device handy for testing. The problem is that the emulator never shows the soft keyboard.

Some skins have a keyboard constantly displayed on the right, some don't, but none that I've tried so far has ever shown a keyboard on the device screen.

Is there some setting that I missed?

Android Solutions

Solution 1 - Android

I found out how to do this on the Android emulator itself (Menu, "Settings" App - not the settings of the emulator outside). All you need to do is:

open settings app -> Language & Input -> Go to the "Keyboard & Input Methods -> click Default

This will bring up a Dialog in which case you can then disable the Hardware Keyboard by switching the hardware keyboard from on to off. This will disable the Hardware keyboard and enable the softkeyboard.

Solution 2 - Android

Here are the steps:

=> Settings
=> Language and Input
=> Default
=> Hardware Physical Keyboard
=> off to turn on the On Screen Keyboard

Solution 3 - Android

If you're using AVD manager add a hardware property Keyboard support and set it to false.

That should disable the shown keyboard, and show the virtual one.

Solution 4 - Android

Settings > Language & input > Current keyboard > Hardware Switch ON.

This option worked.

Solution 5 - Android

Settings > Language & input > Current keyboard > Hardware Switch ON.
It allows you to use your physical keyboard for input while at the same time showing the soft keyboard. I just tested it on Android Lollipop and it works.

Solution 6 - Android

To be more precise, with Lollipop these are the steps I followed to show soft keyboard:

Settings > Language & Input;
under "Keyboard & input methods" label, select "Current Keyboard";
A Dialog named "Change Keyboard" appears, switch ON "Hardware", then select "Choose keyboards";
another Dialog appears, switch ON the "Sample Soft Keyboard". Here you get an alert about the possibility that keyboard will store everything you write, also passwords. Give OK;
Repeat above steps in order to show "Change Keyboard" Dialog again, here the new option "Sample Soft Keyboard" is available and you can select it.

NOTE: after that, you might experience problems in running you app (as I had). Simply restart the emulator.

Solution 7 - Android

Edit your virtual device using AVD.
Press the "show advance setting" button to show more option scroll down to the bottom and check "Enable keyboard input" press "finish" button
at the bottom corner of your window
then start the emulator device that you just set up.
inside the emulator, go to the "Settings" -> "Language & Input"
and in the "Keyboard & Input Methods" -> "Default" then "choose input method" is shown
and switch off "Hardware Physical Keyboard" toggle button

Solution 8 - Android

There is a bug in the new version of NOX app. Software keyboard doesn't work after switching to it in settings. To fix this, I installed Gboard using the Play Market.

Solution 9 - Android

Go to Tools > AVD Manager > Click on ▾ on the Respective Emulator and > Wipe Data and Restart, will solve the problem on New Android Studio.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	blahdiblah	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Android	JoxTraex	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Android	Joe Mellin	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Android	Dr. Spam	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Android	Ashwini Belsare	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Android	vovahost	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Android	vortex.alex	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Android	Insan R.	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Android	Рыбалко А.М.	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Android	user1090751	View Answer on Stackoverflow