[Solved] I can no longer get Eclipse to run anymore.

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I used Eclipse 4.4 M7 for my Java development, developing on Java 7, using development kit 7. I’m on Windows 7 x64. I don’t even know where to discuss Eclipse problems at, so this is the best one, other than Bugzilla.

For some reason, since Sunday, May 18th, I wasn’t able to run Eclipse. Here are the following occurrences I found:

  • When Eclipse is executed, nothing pops up. No welcome banners, no programs appearing in the taskbar, etc.
  • Opened Task Manager, only to see there’s no Eclipse in the Applications tab.
  • Went to check on Processes tab, and see Eclipse running with 92KB memory. But there are no CPU loads or anything that tells me it is actively running.
  • Tried to terminate the process, no responses.
  • Tried to terminate the process tree, no responses.
  • Tried using “taskkill /F” on Eclipse using command prompt. Command prompt reports successful attempt, but Eclipse is still running in Processes tab.
  • Downloaded Process Hacker, run as admin, tried terminating eclipse.exe and its trees, fails to do so.
  • Tried running Eclipse via command prompt, hoping for signs of error messages or something. Ended up with a stalled command prompt with no feedbacks. Can no longer terminate command prompt.
  • Tried using Ctrl+C to terminate command prompt, but there’s no response.
  • Tried reinstalling Java Runtime Environment 7 and JDK 7. That didn’t work.
  • Tried removing and reextracting Eclipse 4.4 M7 from a ZIP file downloaded from Oracle. Doesn’t work.
  • Looked online for more info on this, but I came up dry.
  • Deleted workspace metadata, that fails.
  • Right now, I have 7 eclipse.exe processes not running and all have 92KB memory footprints in Task Manager.

What else can I do?

#2

Have you tried turning your computer off and then on?

#3

Yes, 2 to 3 times before this thread was started. Should’ve mentioned that the restarts are done to finish the reinstallations, so technically, yes I have.

EDIT: Do you mean completely powered off?

#4

I fixed this issue now.

Steps I did:

  1. Turn off all programs I can possibly do.
  2. Restart.
  3. Upon boot, press F8 to enter the boot menu.
  4. Choose Safe Mode.
  5. Once in Safe Mode, delete Eclipse.
  6. Restart.
  7. Boot normally.
  8. Reinstall Eclipse by extracting from ZIP.
  9. Run Eclipse.

Problem solved.

The reason it wasn’t running, is because Eclipse is somehow opened by a system process. And when restarting the computer, even though there aren’t any processes running at startup, Eclipse is still held by some magical system process, so I can’t delete it. This is where Safe Mode comes into play.

I’m never going to touch another Developer Build again after this. A waste of 2 fully active days. :frowning: