How to start IntelliJ IDEA despite of a plug-in error

Question

I have a problem with my IntelliJ idea 9 IDE. I installed the La Clojure plugin (http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?id=4050) and the IDE needed to restart. Now I get the following error on startup and it won't let me continue working:

java.lang.AssertionError: Source file C:\Users\foo\.IntelliJIdea90\system\plugins\org.intellij.clojure_8192.zip does not exist for action unzip[C:\Users\foo\.IntelliJIdea90\system\plugins\org.intellij.clojure_8192.zip, C:\Users\foo\.IntelliJIdea90\config\plugins]
    at com.intellij.openapi.diagnostic.DefaultLogger.error(DefaultLogger.java:49)
    at com.intellij.openapi.diagnostic.Logger.error(Logger.java:48)
    at com.intellij.ide.startup.StartupActionScriptManager$UnzipCommand.execute(StartupActionScriptManager.java:189)
    at com.intellij.ide.startup.StartupActionScriptManager.executeActionScript(StartupActionScriptManager.java:49)
    at com.intellij.ide.ClassloaderUtil.initClassloader(ClassloaderUtil.java:123)
    at com.intellij.ide.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:39)
    at com.intellij.ide.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:35)
    at com.intellij.idea.Main.main(Main.java:54)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at com.exe4j.runtime.LauncherEngine.launch(Unknown Source)
    at com.exe4j.runtime.WinLauncher.main(Unknown Source)

When I couldn't find the zip archive in the specified folder, I manually dropped it in and the IDE correctly extracted it to the config/plugins folder and deleted the zip file from the system/plugins folder. Nevertheless, it didn't solve my problem, the error still exists. Is there a way to start IntelliJ idea disabling the plugin?

Thanks in advance, Alex

Answer 1

I had a similar problem, when installing a bad plugin on my Win10 PC. Idea refused to start and hung on the splash screen. I solved the problem by

1. Close the hanging instance
2. Go to \AppData\Local\JetBrains<your-idea-version>\plugins and remove latest zip-file containing the plugin
3. Go to \AppData\Roaming\JetBrains<your-idea-version>\plugins and remove latest directory containing the plugin
4. Restart Idea.

Answer 2

The problem is caused by a known bug which is already fixed. You can find more details in the issue comments.