Eclipse doesn't load plugins in the dropins folder - eclipse

I just downloaded Eclipse SDK 3.5.1 and want to install some add ons such as GEF, EMF, etc.
I downloaded all the zip files for everything I needed and decided to install them in the dropins folder. I read http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_Getting_Started and structured my dropin folder as specified:
eclipse/
dropins/
emf/
eclipse/
features/
plugins/
gef/
eclipse/
features/
plugins/
... etc ...
When I start up Eclipse it does not recognize any of the features or plugins I have put into the structure above. Any ideas?

This is probably a bit late to help you, but maybe it will help somebody else. I had a similar problem, so I posted a question to the Eclipse Community Forums asking about how to get a report about missing dependencies. Mickael Istria's helpful reply is shown below for those who aren't members of that forum:
You can start or diag the OSGi Console and try to start the bundle manually. The console will print you some warnings. See http://eclipse.org/equinox/documents/quickstart.php and for more details.
shell> eclipse -console
[...Eclipse starts up...]
osgi> diag your.unresolved.bundle
[...shows you unresolved constraints...]
In my case, I tried several directory structures that I thought should work, before I found one that did:
dropins/
myPlugin
plugins/
depPluginDir1/*
depPluginDir2/*
Coming back years later to solve a similar problem..., I found the following web pages to be helpful: Where is My Bundle, Plug-ins are not picked up from the dropins/ folder.

First of all, run eclipse with -clean to ensure p2 fully rescans the dropins directory and sees your plugins.
If it still doesn't load you can use p2 debugging to see what the problem is also. For some strange reason p2 doesn't log dropins issues unless you explicitly turn it on with the following steps:
Create an .options file in the eclipse folder where you start up Eclipse with the following content:
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.core/debug=true
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.core/reconciler=true
Then run eclipse with the following arguments (last argument is the path to the .options file you just created):
eclipse -clean -console -consoleLog -debug /path/to/.options
PS, I have created this bugzilla to request it be turned on as a default. You can vote/track making this logging the default there.
PPS, #kc2001's suggestion is a good one also once you have narrowed down on what plugin has the issue and you want to troubleshoot it more.
Some relevant links:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_Getting_Started
http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/m/116635/
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21428463

I suggest that you try to install those features via the update manager. EMF and GEF are standard features from Eclipse.org, there's no reason not to install them in Eclipse's main p2 repository folder (it is easy to uninstall them, in case that is your concern).
Have a look at the error log view (Window -> Show View -> Error Log) to see why they didn't load. My guess is that they are missing a dependency, but without more information it is difficult to answer your question. I also suggest looking at Help -> About Eclipse -> Installation Details to see what exactly is installed.

Something that has just solved this very same issue for me: start eclipse with the command line parameters -clean -console -consoleLog. The weird thing: with -clean -console, it didn't work. Only after I added -consoleLog, the bundles were recognized.

This ended up being an issue with Eclipse for me. Placing the plugin jar in each of the folders suggested, running as admin, etc. didn't work.
What did solve it was downgrading from a Juno package to Indigo. You can find older versions of Eclipse here.

The local archive plug-ins work if you have downloaded an update site plug-in. In that case the dropins might not work.
About the dropin structure, it always worked for me, but I never use the eclipse folder inside my own ones, only the plugins and features. Did you extract the zip file to that structure?
If yes, it should be worth checking the Error log after Eclipse started, there might be some unresolved dependecies listed.

Don't place the zip files manually like that.
Use the wizard within Eclipse to install a local archive plug-in.

Related

Plugins won't install on Eclipse

I am trying to install subversive and checkstyle onto Eclipse IDE for Java Developers however the following message appears:
"Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.
Software currently installed: Shared profile 1.0.0.1316138460759 (SharedProfile_epp.package.java 1.0.0.1316138460759)
Missing requirement: Shared profile 1.0.0.1316138460759 (SharedProfile_epp.package.java 1.0.0.1316138460759) requires 'org.maven.ide.eclipse [1.0.100.20110804-1717]' but it could not be found"
What does it mean? Is there another way to install them as I need both plugins for my course.
Please help and thank you :)
Try running Eclipse as administrator, I just had the same issue and this worked for me.
There's an alternative to running Eclipse as an administrator: you can manually give write permissions to your "eclipse" folder for all users (or just your current user).
This way Windows/UAC won't pop up the security question that you see when you run programs as admin.
Hi I had the same problem just yesterday.
I was uploading SDK for android and found your question in a google search.
I reverted back to an older version of eclipse. Link to older version of eclipse
This solved it for me.
Remember to delete eclips from your program files. You do this by just physically deleting the file from program files (not through uninstall). Then also make sure you delete your workbench. This is a file called workbench in your docs. Well mine was in my docs, it could be somewhere else on your system.
I am using windows 7.
Best of luck.
I had this problem, but I had to dig harder to fix it.
The source of my problem was the shortcut to launch Eclipse had this in the Target field:
"C:\Program Files\eclipse\eclipse.exe" -configuration C:\Program
Files\eclipse\configuration
The problem with this is that without double quotes around the "-configuration C:\Program Files\eclipse\configuration" section it would hit that space in 'Program Files' and use C:\Program for storing configuration some of the time. Generally, if you have C:\Program you should make sure programs didn't put random files in there by mistake.
To fix this I had to move the configuration files from C:\Program to C:\Program Files\eclipse\configuration, picking and choosing along the way. Change the Target field to:
"C:\Program Files\eclipse\eclipse.exe" "-configuration C:\Program
Files\eclipse\configuration"
and I was good to go.
I had the same problem, and I solved it by setting
"Contact all update sites during install to find required software"
to true.
(I used the Eclipse install manager, in
Eclipse IDE for Java Developers,
Version: Indigo Service Release 1
)
In my case, updating to the latest version of Eclipse (Juno) did the trick. Perhaps your add-on won't run on your version?
I think you need the maven plugin in order to install your plugin. If that's the case, you can follow this this instruction to install it.
Use eclipse update manager to install the plugins.. Then it will automatically select dependent plugins..You dont need to bother about dependent plugins in that case
All I had to do was completely open up full permissions for all users to the directory. This is dangerous if you have a multi-user system but Windows 7 seems to default to giving processes not very high permission levels; some processes (such as Eclipse Updated) don't know how to deal with this and request user permission, so they just bomb out. Easy fix: full control to all users and processes for the Eclipse Directory.

How to manually install software/plugin to Eclipse IDE?

I have downloaded a RAR file from the following location, to be (manually) installed to Eclipse (Helios). How can I perform the manual installation?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/eclipsesql/files/SQL%20Explorer%20RCP%20%28exc%20JRE%29/3.6.1/sqlexplorer_rcp-3.6.1.macosx.cocoa.x86.tgz/download
Instead of putting it directly into the plugins directory, it's better to use the dropins directory as this was created just for this purpose. Have a look here: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_Getting_Started#Dropins
For sqlexplorer: do not download the full RCP version (as your link does), this one is standalone. Get this one instead: http://sourceforge.net/projects/eclipsesql/files/SQL%20Explorer%20Plugin/3.6.1/sqlexplorer_plugin-3.6.1_SR2.zip/download
Extract this to $eclipse_home$\dropins\sqlexplorer and restart Eclipse.
BUT: Using the SqlExplorer Update Site (http://eclipsesql.sourceforge.net/) would be an even better option (Help>Install new Software)
I have tried the installation with the explanation about the dropins folder and had to tweak it like that:
Unzip the distribution into your eclipse installation directory under the folder dropins. Your structure should be:
eclipse/
dropins/
eclipse/
features/
plugins/
Remove all other files and directories. There is some missing piece (file contents.xml), so that the distribution is no real p2 repository which leads to an error. The directories plugins and features are sufficient.
Restart your eclipse (I have done it with option -clean, not sure if that is necessary).
SQLExplorer is then installed and visible in the help, in different menus and with a new perspective.
I even was able to use it to have a look at my SQLite3 database of a rails3 application. Wow!! So I will give it a try.
From their website (http://www.sqlexplorer.org/):
Eclipse Plugin
Download
Download the Eclipse SQL Explorer plugin and extract the zip file in your eclipse directory (requires Eclipse 3.3 or better).
After restarting eclipse with the -clean option, a new SQL Explorer perspective should be available.
Eclipse Update Site
You can install and update Eclipse SQL Explorer via the eclipse update mechanism. The update site for Eclipse SQL Explorer is http://eclipsesql.sourceforge.net/
I always go for the update site option if they present it, it's easier and lets you do updates easily. To use the update mechanism just select Help > Insall New Software... then enter the update site, press Add and go through the wizard.

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter

When i am starting my eclipse i am getting this exception.How could i resolve this.
!SESSION Thu Aug 05 12:52:23 IST 2010 ------------------------------------------
!ENTRY org.eclipse.equinox.launcher 4 0 2010-08-05 12:52:23.805
!MESSAGE Exception launching the Eclipse Platform:
!STACK
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:200)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:252)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:556)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:514)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1311)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:1287)
I cleared my workspace also but still i am getting same problem.
I add one plugin name called tomcatPluginV321.zip.I extracted this in plugin folder.
then i am facing this problem.
In your config.ini file of eclipse eclipse\configuration\config.ini
check this three things:
osgi.framework=file\:plugins\\org.eclipse.osgi_3.4.2.R34x_v20080826-1230.jar
osgi.bundles=reference\:file\:org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator_1.0.0.v20080604.jar#1\:start
org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator.configUrl=file\:org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator\\bundles.info
And check whether these jars are in place or not, the jar files depend upon your version of eclipse .
I just went through this. If you want to manually move your Eclipse installation you need to find and edit relative references in the following files.
Relative to Eclipse install dir:
configuration/org.eclipse.equinox.source/source.info
configuration/org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator/bundles.info
configuration/config.ini
eclipse.ini
For me in all these files there was a ../ reference to a .p2 folder in my home directory. Found them all using a simple grep:
grep '../../../../' * -R
Then just hit it with sed or manually go change it. In my case I moved it up one folder so easy fix:
grep -rl '../../../../' * -R | xargs sed -i 's/..\/..\/..\/..\//..\/..\/..\//g'
Now Eclipse runs fine again.
This can a time consuming problem. For those who want to get on with their work because they do not want to waste much time, I would like to suggest that you download the zip file and unpack the zip file and use it. The zip file is available for all major OS.
https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/
Here instead of hitting the Download button, which will download the Eclipse installer, scroll to the middle area where a list of the various Eclipse IDEs with their respective features are shown. Select the Eclipse IDE of your like and click on the link on the right-hand-side to download the zip or corresponding file for your OS version.
If you still want to use your other Eclipse installations because, for example, you have plugins installed, then download the Eclipse installer and on the right-hand top corner press the icon with 3 minus. After that press Update, then after restart, install the version of Eclipse IDE, which you want (the one that you want to reactivate) in a different folder. The installation will take some time. After the installation is finished you should be able to start your old Eclipse IDE.
Just copying the content of the zip-file to its prefered location from the zip-file will give you this error when you attempt to run the only executable that is visible in the archive. It is named similarly but it is not the real thing.
You should let the archive extract itself to make the installation complete correctly. Doing so gives you an executable named eclipse.exe with which you will not get this error.
check jar files in your project which are mentioned in config.ini if not proper then install manually and then follow the following steps:
Select your product configuration file, right-click on it and select Run As Run Configurations
Select "Validate plug-ins prior to launching". This will check if you have all required plug-ins in your run configuration.
If this check reports that some plug-ins are missing, try clicking the "Add Required-Plug-Ins" button. Also make sure to define all dependencies in your product.
And your application start running
I have the same error after attempting to update Android Development Toolkit (ADT) plugin for Eclipse 3.5.
I haven't figured out what caused this but I re-installed (unziped Eclipse) to fix it.
my case seems to be invalid JRE version.
1.7+ required while I launched with 1.6
plus: I filtered some plugin jars which might be required. so changed to select all
You might be launching your application from a Product file which is not linked to the plugin file. Reset your workspace and launch using the MANIFEST.MF > Overview > Testing > Launch.
I had the same issue.
just removed all my worskspace:
C:\Users\<name>\.<eclipse similar name>

eclipse stuck when building workspace

I am using eclipse 3.4.1 Java EE under Vista. It seems to like getting stuck when building my workspace. Canceling the build doesn't seem to do anything as well.
Why is this happening and how do I fix the problem?
I was able to fix this with the following:
First, exit Eclipse. Then temporarily move the following .projects folder to a safe location:
mv .metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources\.projects projects
Start and exit Eclipse, then move the .projects folder back to where it was originally:
mv projects .metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources\.projects
Use at your own risk, of course.
Some time it's very helpful to execute eclipse from command line with "-clean" parameter to enforce it produce clean up for workspace.
eclipse -clean did not work but following did
eclipse -clean -clearPersistedState
Eclipse often freezes for me at 44% if I'm debugging Android over USB.
When disconnecting the device, Eclipse starts.
The accepted answer allowed me to get Eclipse started again, but it seems that the projects lost their metadata. (E.g., all the Git/Gradle/Spring icons disappeared from the project names.) I have a lot of projects in there, and I didn't want to have to import them all over again.
So here's what worked for me under Kepler. YMMV but I wanted to record this just in case it helps somebody.
Step 1. Temporarily move the .projects file out of the way:
$ cd .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources
$ mv .projects .projects.bak
Step 2. Then start Eclipse. The metadata will be missing, but at least Eclipse starts without getting stuck.
Step 3. Close Eclipse.
Step 4. Revert the .projects.bak file to its original name:
$ mv .projects.bak .projects
Step 5. Restart Eclipse. It may build some stuff, but this time it should get through. (At least it did for me.)
Step1:
Open project directory and edit .project file, remove following lines to disable java script validation.
<buildCommand>
<name>org.eclipse.wst.jsdt.core.javascriptValidator</name>
<arguments>
</arguments>
</buildCommand>
Save file.
Step 2:
Go to Eclipse installed directory and open eclipse.ini(or sts.in if you have STS), change xms and xmx value based on your RAM size of your computer.
-Xms512m
-Xmx1024m
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
OR: in windows, go to eclipse shortcut in desktop, right click->properties-> add following:
C:\software\eclipse\sts-3.6.2.RELEASE\STS.exe -clean -Xms512m -Xmx1024m
Run Eclipse.
Go to Eclipse->windows->preference->Validation, enable Suspend all validators. Do this if you don't want do any validation listed in the list given in Validator panel.
I have this problem whe I have too much maven projects open at once. What I tend to do is:
Restart eclipse (sometimes I need to kill eclipse)
Disable automatic build immediatly (project > uncheck Build automatically)
Right click the project(s) I want to have rebuild
Close unrelated projects
Re-enable automatic build
This enables a functioning rebuild in 99% off the cases in my workspace.
You may want to take a look at How to report a deadlock. You may also want to check the Error view and/or the error log ([workspace]/.metadata/.log). If that doesn't help, you'll probably need to include more info about which plugins you have installed and which projects you have. Can you create a minimal workspace which reproduces the problem?
I faced Similar issue in Eclipse Indigo. I changed the HeapSize it started working correctly. I just added following eclipse.ini file
-vmargs
-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m
It worked fine after increasing the VM size
The only solution for me (Luna 4.4.1) was this:
Go to Project Properties > Builders and then uncheck the Javascript Validator.
I had same issue with my Eclipse and as a solution, I created new project, copied all resources manually (using windows copy/paste) to new project, deleted old project and that's it.
Sometimes, this happens due to improper System shutdown and Eclipse workspace started facing similar issues.
Hope it will work.
Unselect automatic build using Eclipse-> Windows->Preferences helps fixing this issue.
Deleting some of the JDT indexes (in .metadata.plugins\org.eclipse.jdt.core), particularly the big files, often fix or ease the problem for me.
I just had the same problem.
By using Task Manager to kill the build process and exiting Eclipse with no projects open, I was able to get back into Eclipse and clean the project without opening it. I then restarted Eclipse again,loaded my project and all OK.
I've found that this might also happen if you rebuild a workspace with a project containing a lot of image data (such as a dedicated images project). Might be best to put something like that into its own workspace and handle it separately to the rest of the projects you deal with.
If you can't, then don't clean that project when you clean and rebuild. Only rebuild when necessary.
In my case problem arise after importing downloaded project - stuck at 80% build. Solved by adding write permissions for group to project's files (Ubuntu 12.04).
In my case it helped to remove the source folders from my favorites in the Windows Explorer (Windows 8.0). It seems that the build was not actually stuck, but triggered in some kind of infinite loop (as mentioned here - Bug 342931).
Sometimes the problem seems to be fixed by killing other programs which have files open from the project folder.
Looking at the logs in [workspace]/.metadata/.log provided useful information for me.
Turned out there was a java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space error when the workspace build would hang.
This can be edited in the eclipse.ini or sts.ini(If you are using SpringSource Tool Suite) file.
I faced the same problem when I tried to install Angular.js with bower in my project. I seems bower has lots of javascript files it downloaded automatically which caused my IDE to stuck in validation process for a long time. So, I solved this problem this way,
I first installed tern.js 0.9.0.
Then I went to the project properties, selected tern script path
included only the path I needed for validation, My project's
javascript folder. I excluded other path like placeholders,
Angular.js files, Jquery files.
I selected the Javascript from the properties again and did the same
things in include path's source.
My IDE currently working without freezing. I took help from there. Tern
I guess it can be helpful, where any IDE stuck due to lots of Javascript file.
I tried lots of these suggestions, but the only thing that finally worked for me was creating a new workspace, and freshly checking out all my projects into that folder. Then it worked fine ;-)
I just restarted eclipse and it started working the next time.
Refresh all the projects u want to build.
Worked
Restart eclipse.
It worked for me several times.
I was able to solve this by removing extra folder that Eclipse had created in my eclipse installation folder. I didn't install and I was using Eclilpse Neon 3 with Spring Tool suite also installed. But, when I looked into extracted eclipse installation, I had C: folder which had some folder structure. It was mirror image of my Downloads folder. I removed it and restarted.
It worked for me!
None of the the answers here worked for me. What worked was to delete the following folder
C:\Users\your username\workspace\project
name.metadata.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources.projects\project
name\.indexes
Rather than debug and find the exact root cause(s) for this, I just deleted the projects and the metadata folder. Eclipse will rebuild the .metadata file the next time it's launched.
I then pulled in the latest project code and the problem was solved. It was more work as I had to reconfigure everything, including my servers, but build workspace had been stopping at 50% for anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes before it would completely finish, so it was worth the effort.
Also, I've found that with Eclipse, if you stop the build workspace before it completes and shut down Eclipse if that hangs up everything, you can really mess up your configuration and waste lots of time trying to get it stable again. I'm using Eclipse Oxygen, but I've had this happen in all the versions of Eclipse I've used, so I really try to avoid it, if possible.
Inside the project folder open .project file. There is a bad entry and it might help
<buildCommand>
<name>org.eclipse.m2e.core.maven2Builder</name>
<arguments>
</arguments>
</buildCommand>
If you are using Maven as a build tool you might want to:
Close eclipse
Delete dependency directories located in .m2/repository/ - in
Linux
it's located under Home directory and in Windows it should be in c:\Users<YourUsername>.m2 (replace '' with your
username)
Start Eclipse and enjoy normal work :)
That helped me resolve this issue and I hope it helps you too. :)
Cheers!
P.S. I've edited my answer (as #howlger asked) where it was also suggested to delete .eclipse and .p2 folders as it can do harm (although it did NOT in my case + I had to reinstall some of plugins I'm using).
In case there is a problem on start when building your project disable the build automatically from menu. Project -> Build Automatically. This solved my problem while more sophisticated solutions could not.

Can an extra plugin directory be specified on command line

With Eclipse 3.4, is it possible to provide an ADDITIONAL plugin directory from command line? Something like:
eclipse -plugin_dir D:/myproduct/V1.1/plugins -clean
This is just to save copying of plugins everytime.
While copying can be done with script, it's possible that user may not have
write permissions to system install eclipse.
Follow up:
The solution given by #VonC is for reusing same plugins in multiple Eclipses.
I'm looking for a to use Multiple versions of plugins with Same Eclipse.
( If user has Version 1.1 and Vesion 1.2 of my plugin installed )
Resolved:
The directory pointed to by -Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory
should end with a directory named 'eclipse'
Inside this eclipse where should be directory called plugins,
place all the jars at in the plugins directory
create a launcher , which launch eclipse with additional command line:
-vmargs
-Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory=AbsolutePath\eclipse
One may want to add -clean also ..
As mentionned in Installing Eclipse (3.4+) plugins in a directory other than ECLIPSE_HOME/plugins, the right way is to define a bundle pools (also introduced here)
See my previous answer for more details.
It space is not a big issue, users can copy the system install of eclipse into a work directory and put additional plugins/features in the dropins/ directory.