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Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828709] Wed, 17 June 2020 04:39 Go to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Eclipse still occasionally manages to corrupt its workspace so badly that even starting with the -clean option doesn't help anymore and the application reproducibly crashes and is unable to bring up its GUI. I consider that pretty much the worst case because that would mean that one has to reconstruct the entire workspace with all its settings AGAIN! :-(

Of course - as Eclipse user since v1 - I know better and always keep a copy of a working .metadata folder around. But after 20 years this should really be something that Eclipse ought to be immune against!

log is attached. Some NPE again...
  • Attachment: .log
    (Size: 32.26KB, Downloaded 75 times)
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828712 is a reply to message #1828709] Wed, 17 June 2020 05:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
According to the log I'd guess that the issue is caused by the oracle.eclipse.tools.webtier.jsf.facelet plugin; basically its dependencies don't seem to be properly declared (and that would explain why -clean has no effect; you may also want to give -clearPersistedState a try). If this is the cause you've likely installed a plugin before closing Eclipse IDE for the last time and the issue should be reproducible when a certain set of plugins are installed. I found what seems to be a fix on GitHub [1] but it's already 5 years old so I would expect such an error to be fixed now. I don't really know where the plugin comes from but are you using a recent release of it?

Just to make sure the issue comes from the workspace's state: does replacing the current workspace by a "cleaner" one actually solve the issue and allows Eclipse IDE to start again?

By the way, this forum is dedicated to issues with JDT, the plugin providing Java support, so you may not get trully relevant answers here. I would advise you to:

  1. Make sure you're using a recent release of Eclipse IDE and have installed the latest version of all your plugins
  2. Contact the developers of this oracle.eclipse.tools.webtier.jsf.facelet plugin to ask them for a fix
  3. Submit a new bug on Bugzilla to ask for this NullPointerException issue to be fixed (if relevant)

[1] https://github.com/palek/oracle.eclipse.tools.webtier.jsf.facelet
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828713 is a reply to message #1828712] Wed, 17 June 2020 05:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
It might also help to delete .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.e4.workbench/workbench.xmi if there is some problem with the workbench's persisted state.
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828731 is a reply to message #1828713] Wed, 17 June 2020 15:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Thanks for responding to both!

> Just to make sure the issue comes from the workspace's state: does replacing the current workspace by a "cleaner" one actually solve the issue and allows Eclipse IDE to start again?

Yes - it did.

> If this is the cause you've likely installed a plugin before...

Yes - I had tried a plugin, which didn't work (turned out it was mean't for 32-Bit versions of Eclipse only - do these still exist?) and so I uninstalled it again. Could have to do with that workspace corruption. But even then that shouldn't happen.

> It might also help to delete .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.e4.workbench/workbench.xmi if there is some problem with the workbench's persisted state.

With the -clean I would have expected that Eclipse does exactly that and removes (or ignores) ALL previously persisted state. I thought that EXACTLY THAT was the purpose to overcome precisely such cases. Or what else is that option for, then?

[Updated on: Wed, 17 June 2020 15:21] by Moderator

Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828733 is a reply to message #1828713] Wed, 17 June 2020 18:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
> It might also help to delete .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.e4.workbench/workbench.xmi if there is some problem with the workbench's persisted state.

This turns out to be a real life saver! Thanks for posting this! Just had another issue and this quickly fixed it.
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828749 is a reply to message #1828733] Thu, 18 June 2020 02:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Sometimes an open editor or some open view can do bad things while the workbench is being opened. Note that the -clean thing is more an OSGi thing for updating the self profile; normally the state/presence of all the bundles is cached for quick startup and this option forces a full refresh, e.g., rewiring all the package imports between the bundles and so on. I believe the -clean option has no impact on the workbench nor its state. An option specifically for that purpose might be helpful...
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828778 is a reply to message #1828749] Thu, 18 June 2020 08:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Ed Merks wrote on Thu, 18 June 2020 08:06
Sometimes an open editor or some open view can do bad things while the workbench is being opened. [...] I believe the -clean option has no impact on the workbench nor its state. An option specifically for that purpose might be helpful...

Doesn't the -clearPersistedState option fit that purpose? Running Eclipse IDE with this option deletes the .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.e4.workbench/workbench.xmi file.
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828779 is a reply to message #1828778] Thu, 18 June 2020 08:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
I didn't know about that option! Thanks for making us aware of it. :-)
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828797 is a reply to message #1828778] Thu, 18 June 2020 18:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
> Doesn't the -clearPersistedState option fit that purpose?

I've never heard nor read about that option. Are there more such goodies? Are these listed anywhere?
Re: Workspace corrupted - Eclipse GUI not coming up anymore [message #1828806 is a reply to message #1828797] Fri, 19 June 2020 01:17 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
They are listed here:

https://help.eclipse.org/2020-06/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fmisc%2Fruntime-options.html
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