"Sources directory is already netbeans project" error when opening a project from existing sources - netbeans

I've installed NetBeans 6.9.1 and installed few updates for it.
Then I've created a new project from existing sources. After a few changes I've closed it. And now I am having an error, when trying to open a new project from existing sources (the same files):
Sources directory is already netbeans project (maybe only in memory).
After Googling it, I noticed it happened not only with me. But I didn't find the correct solution. I've tried to restart the IDE, I've tried to restart the PC, I've tried to reinstall NetBeans. Nothing helped.

Thank you!
I was having the same problem:
Sources directory is already NetBeans project (maybe only in memory).
Netbeans creates a folder in your project named "nbproject". Once you delete that, restart the IDE and you're good to go.

When you create a NetBeans project from existing sources, NetBeans uses the same directory to add its own files: a netbeans folder with .proj files.
Solution: delete the netbeans folder and restart the IDE. Opening a new project should now work.

Go to the folder containing your project
Delete the folder named nbproject
Restart Netbeans
Try creating your project again from the original folder

This means the project folder is already a netbeans project. So instead of adding it as a new project open it as

This happens(i believe) because netbeans tries to version control the files created or edited.
Under the project folder netbeans create a netbeans directory just delete it . This has been tested in Ubuntu. Then you can import your project if php then php using existing sources.

Click File >> Recent Projects > and you should be able to use edit it again. Hope it helps :)

On Windows at least none of these answers work (for me anyway!). I have found the only way is to copy an existing netbeans project folder in to your new project and manually edit the xml project name.
I also opened the private/private.xml and removed the open files xml just incase these caused problems.
Once I'd done this the project works as normal.

I checked the "Put NetBeans metadata in separate directory" tick and it works fine.
This is in 2. Name and Location after you choose PHP from existing source

In my case my project root directory consists ".project". This contain the XML reference of the project name.
By removing this, i am able to create a project.

Usually this happened when we copy source code of a already created project and copied in different folder and try to create a project from it. as netBeans create its folder nbproject in our project folder this folder also get copied with our source code and it give error "Sources directory is already NetBeans project (maybe only in memory)" remove this folder from you newly copied folder and voila you can create a new project.

If this is your own source code and you already have a Netbeans project folder with your source files you should just start with:
File | Open Project...
not
File | New Project ...
because the project is not new.

If it helps anyone else, I had the same problem and the solution was to reinstall NetBeans.
I had tried all sorts of fixes: Deleting the NetBeansProjects folders, checking/unchecking "Put Netbeans metadata in a separate directory", killing/restarting NetBeans, restarting the system, etc. Nothing cleared the message...except the reinstall.

The advice here about removing the nbproject directory is not quite the whole story.
What Netbeans seems to do (and we are guessing at reverse engineering here) is to look for an xml file which has opening and closing project tags in it. This it concludes is evidence of an already existing project. Now if your files have an nbproject directory there, that will contain a project.xml file which contains the said tags. So removing that will do what you want.
But, my files don't have a nbproject directory but still NetBeans tells me there is an existing project maybe in memory. The reason is: my files include a file called pom.xml and that contains the said project tags in the xml (it was created by an entirely different system). Once that xml file is removed, then NetBeans will create an html project for me importing my code.
In sum: look through any xml files in you existing code, and be wary of project tags.

This happened to me when I tried to import an Eclipse project in a brand new NetBeans 7.2.1 install on Ubuntu 12.04LTS.
I mistakenly selected the import projects from workspace (the first option in the import wizard's opening pane) on the first attempt, and it opened the project in the original Eclipse workspace path (which was on a usb stick).
From this, I then realized that I actually need the second option - import project ignoring project dependencies, which lets you specifically choose source and destination folders. After closing the project, I tried to import again with the proper option, but it didn't work.
From then on nothing I did helped - restart the IDE, move the source folder, nothing. There was no nbproject folder in the project or /var/cache in the user folder to delete (in-fact there was no nbproject folder in the whole file-system).
Since restart didn't work, I'm guessing that there is a garbage project entry somewhere which Nb reads (See Martin Frické answer above).
After googling along the lines of 'netbeans clear memory project cache' with no success, I opted to reinstall NetBeans -
sudo /usr/local/netbeans-7.2.1/uninstall
sudo ./netbeans-7.2.1-ml-javase-linux.sh
which solved it.

If you are on a Mac, press command shift G and in the box type /users and then go, next click on your user name and navigate to netbeansprojects and open it. Then delete the ones in there that are causing problems. You can then create your project.
Note: I had moved my wordpress folder to my desktop trying to figure this out, so I dropped it back into the origional location and it works fine. So if you did this, just replace the wordpress folder after deleting the problem projects from the netbeansprojects folder and its contents back to the original installation folder.
Hope this helps...:)

This is what I did to solve this error:
1) I copied a folder named "folder1" (and I called the new folder "folder2"). "folder1" was a Netbeans project so it had a folder called "nbproject" inside it.
2) When I tried to create a project out of the "folder2", Netbeans threw an error "Sources directory is already netbeans project (maybe only in memory)."
3) Inside Netbeans delete the project of "folder1". Then, delete the two folders named "nbproject" (one is inside "folder1" and the other is inside "folder2").
4) Inside Netbeans, create two new projects: one for "folder1" and another for "folder2". The error should not appear anymore.

copy an existing netbeans project folder in to your new project and manually edit the xml project name.
reinstall netbeans
copy/move all files/folders (except nbproject/ folder) to a new folder for your project, with a new name.

Try to create a new empty project; then you can copy the public_html to the new project folder and it will appear .

I faced the same issue:
Sources directory is already NetBeans project (maybe only in memory).
The solution is:
Netbeans creates a folder in your project named "nbproject". Once you
delete that, restart the IDE and you're good to go.

Related

Getting "Project folder ins managed by a project..." when opening Actviti source code in netbeans

I can't open Activiti source code in netbeans It just says "Project folder is managed by a project Activiti. Instead of creating a new project just open it. If by a chance you just deleted the project Activiti then restart the IDE to reuse the folder."
I have restarted Netbeans and re-cloned the project but it still won't open.
And eclipse just says that the javac was not found in the build.xml.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The project folder does not contain a nbproject folder.
Try the following:
rename the pom.xml file to something else, e.g. pom.xmlzzzz,
create the project in NetBeans,
rename pom.xmlzzzz back to pom.xml once the project has loaded in NetBeans.
I've just hit the same problem with a different project and this is what fixed it for me.
Netbeans creates a folder in your project named "nbproject". Once you delete that, restart the IDE and you're good to go.
Go to the folder containing your project
Delete the folder named nbproject
Restart Netbeans
Try creating your project again from the original folder

I need Netbeans help. NO project's -src node appears so no source files--only -Libraries node shows

I hope it's OK to ask this here. Netbeans forums isn't responding. If not, I'll delete this or ask for it to be deleted. I'm desperate so I'll face the wrath, if any.
I moved my Netbeans projects folder from one directory node to another to make backing up all my stuff easier. BAD MOVE.
Now when I open a project using Files | Open project (ctrl-shift-O) NO source files appear because there is no "+Source Packages" node to expand.
It looks like this for all projects, e.g. one named GBL:
Projects
-GBL
+Libraries
It doesn't look like this anymore:
Projects
-GBL
+Source Packages (How do I get this back?)
+Libraries
The Netbeans Properties for each project shows me the path it's using. Windows 7 Explorer shows me that the src, build, and nbproject folders contain files and ALL the source files are in the src folder for that path.
What have I done and more importantly what should I do to get back to being able to open a project normally?
(I've tried recreating the original Netbeans folder and using Windows Explorer to copy an entire project folder into it but: same result--all I see is the Libraries node under the project's name node.)
I just tried to Clean (and also Build) to see what would happen. Error:
ant -f C:\\Users\\Dov\\Documents\\NetBeansProjects\\BasicShirt -Dnb.internal.action.name=build jar
C:\Users\Dov\Documents\NetBeansProjects\BasicShirt\nbproject\build-impl.xml:[u]231[/u]:
Must set src.dir
I just Set Configuration by right-clicking the project's name and provided a path to the src folder.
NOW I SEE MY SOURCE FILES BUT NOW THIS line in the .xml file is flagged with similar message:
<fail unless="[u][b]test[/b][/u].src.dir">Must set test.src.dir</fail>
NOW what do I do? (Netbeans 7.4.)
If I could get rid of the 7.4 automatic creation of +Test Packages, I might be OK.
If you can help, I'd be very happy.
(I'm considering re-installing 7.3 if available or removing and reinstalling 7.4 and try to avoid the "testing" requirement, but there goes all my many tweaks of 7.4.)
Well, after considerable frustration with the problem, I solved it, essentially.
It's here, in total. My synopsis plus how it helped me follows. In short, I had to set up a new java project based on existing sources using the New Project Wiz and simply direct Netbeans to the sources.
File > New Project
Choose Java Project with Existing Sources.
Type a (new) project name and ...
... make the Project Folder contains the path to where you want the new project to be stored. (For me, this is the folder where Netbeans has been able to find my sources.)
Click Next for the Existing Sources page of the wizard and ...
5a. ... in the Source Packages Folder pane, click Add Folder and ...
5b. ... navigate to your sources and select the source root folder.
Clicking Next goes to the Includes/Excludes pane, which I didn't need to use.

Eclipse project already exists

I deleted a project in my workspace, then tried to create a new project with the same name. Eclipse told me that it overlaps the location of another project (the one I just deleted). How do I fix this?
This is what I did.
Go to Window --> Show View --> Project Explorer
Then right click on the project name that you want to delete and Click Delete.
In the dialogue box, check 'Delete Project Contents on disk'
It worked. I was able to create the project with same name again.
I had the same problem with the IBM Integration Toolkit, which is based on Eclipse. The problem also occurs in Android Studio, which is also based on Eclipse. crazyscot seems to have the right answer at A project with that name already exists in the workspace eclipse and his solution worked for me.
You need to open up the Project Explorer view (it may already be open) and delete the project from within there.
Go to Window >> Preferences >> General >> startup and shutdown >> workspace
theen select Recent work space then click Remove and close the program and open it again
You have to manually delete the project folder from your "workspace" directory (wherever you have defined it to be).
there will be a file .project xml file in the project and its content looks like
<projectDescription>
<name>ProjectName</name>
.
.
.
</projectDescription>
here ProjectName is the name of project you can change it to whatever you want.
First you create a project in some other location with the same name of your project as before.
Now delete this project by right clicking on project > Delete.
Do not check the dialog "Delete Project Contents on Disk".
Now you move your newly created project through file manager to the original location(location where you are not able to import your project).
Then import the project from the newly moved location(location where you are not able to import your project).
After deleting the project from Eclipse IDE(Project Explorer), remove it from work space folder as well. Workspace folder path - C:\Users\username\workspace (it can be different for your system).
try moving the project and try importing
go to tab window>preferences>search workspace> then make sure in last / is not in your recent workspace. Example-:/var/www/html
your url should like above.
With the same problem, I did a text search and found an XML file containing the name of the project.
I had copied the project from another project. Let's say that I copied project A to project B. Although the XML file in the new project (B) was named for project B, it had an entry which still referred to project A. When I edited it, the problem went away.
Simply remove the .classpath and .project files and try.
Go to create new project. Once there, select the project type. Mine was PHP project. The new PHP project screen will popup. There, click create a new project and give the project name which you used before. Then press finish.
If you need a 100% risk-free strategy, just right click the project and select 'export', and put it back where it was. Then, you can either continue using the project in your current directory (with no more popups) or switch over to the directory you were working in before. The side effect of the former is that you will have a duplicate project taking up a small amount of space. If anything, finish up what you need to do in the current directory, then pull (via git) from the original directory. Or, delete the project in the current directory, and import from the original directory to the target directory for the second time - though now, since it is the proper way, the issue will be resolved.
I met this problem just and I just figure out the main reason cause this problem is your copying pom.xml from another already existing project in your workspace.
So the way is find the pom.xml in your project folder and rename <name>conflicted Project name</name>.
In 2021, Using Ubuntu 20 here is simple way to remove it.
In Eclipse main Menu
Window -> Preferences
In the search type recent workspaces
Select and delete the project. click apply changes
Removing a project from an Eclipse workspace does not delete the files by default. You have to check a checkbox for that. This is a Good Thing. As you have not checked the checkbox, you have to delete the files manually using e.g. a file manager.
Note that there are files starting with . in an Eclipse project directory, such as .project. They are considered hidden files on Unices.
go to the folder and delete the file .project. This worked for me.

Eclipse: fully remove an old project?

I run eclipse on Ubuntu 11.10. I originally created a project in folder foo. I subsequently deleted that project to re-organise folders and I now want to create a new project in folder foo/bar but Eclipse won't let me because it says the the new directory is a sub-directory of an existing project.
How can I force Eclipse to forget about the original project so that I can create the new one?
In general, the deleting the project from the "/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects" should work, but if you're using 'working sets', you might have the problem I had once, which is basically have a 'ghost' project in your workspace that you can't delete because it says "this project doesn't exist anymore".
If this is your problem, try to delete an entry for your 'ghost project' in the file:
"/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.ui.workbench/workingsets.xml" (on MacOS).
Delete the project from /.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects and not the whole .metadata folder will save all other projects and config.
I have also encountered this problem, except it's been in Windows. I didn't want to completely remove the .metadata folder and none of the other solutions fixed it.
I managed to fix it by removing the file workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources\.safetable\org.eclipse.core.resources while Eclipse was closed. The file gets saved when closing Eclipse so I guess it is cached while Eclipse is open.
Go to your workspace folder using some file manager (you can find your workspace location, be clicking File -> Swich Workspace...) and delete your foo folder, or simple remove its contents (.project file being most important). Then you should be able to create your new project.
I finally managed to fix it by deleting the workspace/.metadata directory. This resolves the problem but has the side effect of making eclipse forget everything about the workspace so I'm not sure it's a recommended way of fixing the problem.
I am running Eclipse Kepler on OS X Mountain Lion, and I had a similar problem. I deleted a project and tried to recreate it in the same location. Eclipse gave me an error saying that the project already existed. I discovered that if I close Eclipse after deleting a project, then reopen it, Eclipse finally 'forgets' the deleted project and allows me to re-create it.
(This question was posted over 1.5 years ago, and I'm guessing that Bruno already tried this and it didn't work. I just want to let others know that this solution worked for me now on Kepler.)
I had the same problem, with Egit and repositories that I deleted and imported back again, instead of importing as general project choose import as existing project.
maybe you can try to delete the folders:
"/your_workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources"
"/your_workspace/ProjectName"
If the Project was in a working set before you deleted it, you might have to manually remove it from the set.
Instead of deleting any file, rename it, so if whatever you try doesn't work, you can revert.

The project description file (.project) for my project is missing

I am using Eclipse PDT 3.5 on Vista (32 bit). It works, though eclipse needs admin rights to execute. This annoys me, but I accept it.
But: every now and then (I am not sure, it may even be everytime I want to open a project), I get the error message "The project description file (.project) for my project is missing.".
It is NOT missing, it is in the main folder of the project. It has no special flags set (it is not hidden, nor system file, nor write-protected).
This is for ALL projects I have in my list. The only solution I have found so far is to delete the project from eclipse an re-add it. This is somewhat annoying.
What can I do?
EDIT: The workspaces are on a server volume. Can this be the problem? I used Eclipse 3.3 before, and there it was no problem with the server paths. And the server volume is mapped to a drive letter.
I've found this solution by googling. I have just had this problem and it solved it.
My mistake was to put a project in other location out of the workspace, and share this workspace between several computers, where the paths differ. I learned that, when a project is out of workspace, its location is saved in workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/PROJECTNAME/.location
Deleting .location and reimporting the project into workspace solved the issue.
I had the same problem and in my case .project file was also present in the project directory and had correct permissions.
This problem happened to me after I closed and reopened multiple projects quickly one after another and Eclipse tried to rebuild them at the same time.
In my case Eclipse lost .location file in the workspace directory for 2 out of 5 projects: <workspace>/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/<project name>/.location
I've followed instructions on How to get project list if delete .metadata accidentally and imported the project in the workspace manually via File :: Import :: Other :: General :: Existing Projects. After that .location file was created again and Eclipse stopped complaining.
I had the same problem, and I haven't gotten that error since I close the project before I close myEclipse and don't tidy up the default location.
My project source and compiled files are outside the default workspace but there are stubb folders created by default by myEclipse in the default workspace. When I setup the project, there are two .project files - one in the default workspace that points to the working dir, and one .project in my chosen directory.
If you move the files for whatever reason manually, then Elipse lost the reference and output a missing project file error, but the reason is thaty you move manually the files and Eclipse lost the reference
I am using Eclipse 3.5.1 on Ubuntu. After rebooting my machine my projects in PHP Explorer view were giving the warning that the .project file was missing. The problem was that the external directory where my projects are hosted was not mounted on reboot. So I did a mount -a from the command line and the Eclipse recognized the files.
If you only want to checkout and you delete the folder from the workspace you also need to delete the reference to it in the Java view. Then it should checkout as if it were checking out for the first time.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projectDescription>
<name>Lynxster</name>
<comment></comment>
<projects>
</projects>
<buildSpec>
</buildSpec>
<natures>
</natures>
</projectDescription>
in the name tag give the name of the project folder
and save this file with .project extension
& paste it in the project folder.
this worked for me.
In my case i have changed the root folder in which the Eclipse project were stored. I have discovered tha when i have runned :
cat .plugins/org.eclip.resources/.projects/<projectname>/.location
Martin Encountered the same issue with a Minecraft Mod project when I changed the Main folder location.
Normally I would open the project like this
This is how my path looked when I started the project
I got the same "The project description file (.project) for my project is missing." Error.
I later found the .project file in the main folder like this.
This is the location where I found the .project file
I found that going eclipse to "File->Open Project from File System or Archive" and navigate to your main project folder with the .project file solved the problem.
My project is already included
This is my first post in here hoping it can help you out, Martin.
I created a new workspace and imported old projects. I just didn’t open this workspace for a long time, I don’t know why this problem happened
In my case it happened cause I accidentally removed eclipse metadata files.
So I fixed it by removing the project from eclipse, but without deleting files from disck.
And then reimport.
If you keep a backup of your worskpace folder, then all you need to do is restore the following folder from the backup:
workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources
It worked for me after I created and switched to a new workspace and copied my codebase there.