Eclipse won't start, log error only says: !SESSION !SESSION

Question

today when I tryed to start my eclipse (I´m running Eclipse Oxygen in Windows 10, it works perfectly all this past days) and I got the following error message in <workspace-directory>\.metadata\.log:

SESSION !SESSION !SESSION !SESSION

In order to solve my problem I did all of this not having success:

1 - I deleted the .snap file located in the directory <workspace-directory>\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources

2 - I deleted this <workspace-directory>\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.resources\.root\[number].tree

3 - I tryed to start it from the Command Prompt cleaning it first eclipse.exe --clean

Does anyone can help here? Thanks in forehand.

Answer 1

Troubleshooting :

1. Try to start from the command with the clean argument: eclipse.exe -clean
2. Try: eclipse.exe -data _ws -configuration _config
   • _config\<timestamp>.log => Eclipse fails very early, no workspace issue
   • _ws\.metadata\.log => also no workspace issue
   • Success => workspace issue
3. Maybe your Java installation is broken => reinstall Java on your System
4. Maybe a last installed plugin broke your Eclipse installation => revert installation from the command line

Answer 2

I had the same error with my eclipse oxygen (rpc and rap) installation. In my case it had nothing to do with the workspace or installation, because I used a fresh installation with a new empty workspace.

I figured out that my JDK (jdk1.8.0_131) caused the strange error messages. I don't think that the JDK is broken, because eclipse neon and all other java applications work fine. But obviously there must be some incompatibility. I also think that it is not a JDK problem, because when it starts it shows the workspace selection dialog. This means that equinox is starting and the swt bundles are loaded. After selecting the workspace to continue it fails.

My solution was to install the actual JDK (jdk1.8.0_144) and use this one.

Finally oxygen works.