Fix Eclipse java references database corruption?

Question

How do I make eclipse rebuild the database of classes contained within a project or workspace? This is what it uses to make the "References" menu action work, what it uses for the "Add import" dialog, etc. Basically, it's part of the core usefulness of Eclipse. And now, it's only working for maybe 5% of my project.

I've run into this problem multiple times: something happens with eclipse, either through an OutOfMemoryError because I opened some huge file, or because a workspace just has months of hard usage.

Right now, I'm using Eclipse Galileo on Win32. However, I've had this problem on MacOS as well as with Europa and Ganymede.

In the past, I've trashed my workspace and started again, but today this is not an option. My last workspace backup is from last Friday, but that still means hours of work in restoration. Surely there must be another option?

EDIT: I've used eclipse -clean as well as rebuilt my project. This is a corruption problem somewhere in eclipse, not in my project.

Answer 1

First exit Eclipse. Next in your workspace directory, delete the .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.jdt.core/ directory. Next time you launch Eclipse, it will rebuild all of its internal indexes. Often cleaning of projects doesn't force all of that metadata to be rebuilt.

Answer 2

If it's just on a project level, I recall that you can simply close the project (i.e. Project -> Close project), then re-open it (Project -> Open project). You shouldn't even need to restart eclipse.

Answer 3

This worked:

• Export preferences from your current workspace (File->Export->General->Preferences)
• Switch workspaces to a new workspace
• Import preferences into the current workspace
• Import your old project into the new workspace (File->Import->General->Existing Projects into Workspace), choosing "Copy project"

That works for getting the references DB fixed. To get SVN (and presumably CVS) to work again:

• Right click on project, choose Team, choose "Share project." Choose whichever type of versioning repository you were using and click next. Eclipse should realize that your project was already configured for this and just make you click Finish.
• Update your sources with the repository.