Problem building Android app - 'could not compile service support class' error message

[Terry Judd]

I’m having a problem building/testing an Android app on one of my two development laptops (Macbook Air, LC 9.0.2, OSX Yosemite) – it comes up with the following error message...

Unable to build app for testing: could not compile service support class.

It seems to work fine on another laptop with a similar setup (the only difference being that it is running OSX Mojave) – same Android Studio setup and Java version installed.

Any ideas?

Terry...