Keep getting error that says Server App Engine Standard at localhost failed to start

Question

When trying to start a google app engine project in eclipse i keep getting an error saying Server App Engine Standard at localhost failed to start(error log below).

Has anyone come across this issue before and what was the cause of the issue.

WARNING: An illegal reflective access operation has occurred
WARNING: Illegal reflective access by com.google.appengine.tools.development.StreamHandlerFactory (file:/C:/Users/AppData/Local/google/ct4j-cloud-sdk/LATEST/google-cloud-sdk/platform/google_appengine/google/appengine/tools/java/lib/impl/appengine-local-runtime.jar) to method java.net.URL.getURLStreamHandler(java.lang.String)
WARNING: Please consider reporting this to the maintainers of com.google.appengine.tools.development.StreamHandlerFactory
WARNING: Use --illegal-access=warn to enable warnings of further illegal reflective access operations
WARNING: All illegal access operations will be denied in a future release
Jan 05, 2020 3:13:54 PM com.google.appengine.tools.development.SystemPropertiesManager setSystemProperties
INFO: Overwriting system property key 'java.util.logging.config.file', value 'C:\Users\AppData\Local\google\ct4j-cloud-sdk\LATEST\google-cloud-sdk\platform\google_appengine\google\appengine\tools\java\config\sdk\logging.properties' with value 'WEB-INF/logging.properties' from 'C:\Users\eclipse-workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp1\WEB-INF\appengine-web.xml'
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap.putVal(ConcurrentHashMap.java:1011)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap.put(ConcurrentHashMap.java:1006)
    at java.base/java.util.Properties.put(Properties.java:1316)
    at java.base/java.util.Collections$CheckedMap.put(Collections.java:3638)
    at com.google.appengine.tools.development.SharedMain.setTimeZone(SharedMain.java:183)
    at com.google.appengine.tools.development.SharedMain.postServerActions(SharedMain.java:152)
    at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServerMain$StartAction.apply(DevAppServerMain.java:398)
    at com.google.appengine.tools.util.Parser$ParseResult.applyArgs(Parser.java:45)
    at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServerMain.run(DevAppServerMain.java:257)
    at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppServerMain.main(DevAppServerMain.java:248)

would be really appreciative of any advice anyone could give to help me solve this issue as time is definitely against me on this one.

edit: appengine-web.xml added below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<appengine-web-app xmlns="http://appengine.google.com/ns/1.0">
    <threadsafe>true</threadsafe>
    <sessions-enabled>false</sessions-enabled>
    <runtime>java8</runtime>
    <system-properties>
        <property value="WEB-INF/logging.properties" 
            name="java.util.logging.config.file"/>
    </system-properties>
</appengine-web-app>

Answer 1

You're running with a Java 11 JVM, which isn't supported by the local development server.

This problem usually indicates that you don't have a Java 8 JVM configured. You'll need to:

• Download and install a Java 8 JVM (for example, from adoptopenjdk.net).
• Add the JVM to Eclipse via Preferences > Java > Installed JREs; the Search button will usually just work.
• Mark this JVM as the default JVM for the JavaSE-1.8 profile in the Execution Environments pane.