Nimbus: java.lang.ClassCastException: javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.DerivedColor$UIResource cannot be cast to javax.swing.Painter

Question

I'm using the Nimbus look & feel in my swing application.

Sometimes, when a dialog is showed (with dialog.setVisible(true)) the Nimbus look & feel throws the following exception:

Caugth exception of type java.lang.ClassCastException with message javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.DerivedColor$UIResource cannot be cast to javax.swing.Painter 
java.lang.ClassCastException: javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.DerivedColor$UIResource cannot be cast to javax.swing.Painter
    at javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusStyle.getBackgroundPainter(NimbusStyle.java:708)
    at javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.SynthPainterImpl.paintBackground(SynthPainterImpl.java:99)
    at javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.SynthPainterImpl.paintPanelBackground(SynthPainterImpl.java:957)
    at javax.swing.plaf.synth.SynthPanelUI.update(SynthPanelUI.java:155)
    at javax.swing.JComponent.paintComponent(JComponent.java:778)
    at javax.swing.JComponent.paint(JComponent.java:1054)
    at javax.swing.JComponent.paintToOffscreen(JComponent.java:5221)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager$PaintManager.paintDoubleBuffered(RepaintManager.java:1482)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager$PaintManager.paint(RepaintManager.java:1413)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager.paint(RepaintManager.java:1206)
    at javax.swing.JComponent._paintImmediately(JComponent.java:5169)
    at javax.swing.JComponent.paintImmediately(JComponent.java:4980)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager.paintDirtyRegions(RepaintManager.java:770)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager.paintDirtyRegions(RepaintManager.java:728)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager.prePaintDirtyRegions(RepaintManager.java:677)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager.access$700(RepaintManager.java:59)
    at javax.swing.RepaintManager$ProcessingRunnable.run(RepaintManager.java:1621)
    at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:251)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:721)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.access$200(EventQueue.java:103)
    at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:682)
    at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:680)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.security.ProtectionDomain$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:691)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:244)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:163)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:155)
    at java.awt.WaitDispatchSupport$2.run(WaitDispatchSupport.java:182)
    at java.awt.WaitDispatchSupport$4.run(WaitDispatchSupport.java:221)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.awt.WaitDispatchSupport.enter(WaitDispatchSupport.java:219)
    at java.awt.Dialog.show(Dialog.java:1077)
    at java.awt.Component.show(Component.java:1651)
    at java.awt.Component.setVisible(Component.java:1603)
    at java.awt.Window.setVisible(Window.java:1014)
    at java.awt.Dialog.setVisible(Dialog.java:1003)
    at java_awt_Dialog$setVisible.call(Unknown Source)
    at org.openfidelia.views.core.impl.WorkbenchImpl$_showViewAsDialog_closure1.doCall(WorkbenchImpl.groovy:375)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.PogoMetaMethodSite$PogoCachedMethodSite.invoke(PogoMetaMethodSite.java:226)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.PogoMetaMethodSite.callCurrent(PogoMetaMethodSite.java:52)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.AbstractCallSite.callCurrent(AbstractCallSite.java:141)
    at org.openfidelia.views.core.impl.WorkbenchImpl$_showViewAsDialog_closure1.doCall(WorkbenchImpl.groovy)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.reflection.CachedMethod.invoke(CachedMethod.java:90)
    at groovy.lang.MetaMethod.doMethodInvoke(MetaMethod.java:233)
    at groovy.lang.MetaClassImpl.invokeMethod(MetaClassImpl.java:1047)
    at groovy.lang.ExpandoMetaClass.invokeMethod(ExpandoMetaClass.java:1110)
    at groovy.lang.MetaClassImpl.invokeMethod(MetaClassImpl.java:877)
    at groovy.lang.Closure.call(Closure.java:412)
    at groovy.lang.Closure.call(Closure.java:406)
    at groovy.lang.Closure.run(Closure.java:490)
    at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:241)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:721)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.access$200(EventQueue.java:103)
    at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:682)
    at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:680)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.security.ProtectionDomain$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:691)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:244)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:163)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:155)
    at java.awt.WaitDispatchSupport$2.run(WaitDispatchSupport.java:182)
    at java.awt.WaitDispatchSupport$4.run(WaitDispatchSupport.java:221)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.awt.WaitDispatchSupport.enter(WaitDispatchSupport.java:219)
    at java.awt.Dialog.show(Dialog.java:1077)
    at java.awt.Component.show(Component.java:1651)
    at java.awt.Component.setVisible(Component.java:1603)
    at java.awt.Window.setVisible(Window.java:1014)
    at java.awt.Dialog.setVisible(Dialog.java:1003)
    at java_awt_Dialog$setVisible.call(Unknown Source)
    at org.openfidelia.views.core.impl.WorkbenchImpl$_showViewAsDialog_closure1.doCall(WorkbenchImpl.groovy:375)

I don't have any idea when this happens, it just rarely occurs, when a dialog is showed.

I've been searching in Google (http://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=212757) and it's happened to more people, but nobody seems to know the cause of this problem.

Has this happened to anyone else? Maybe it's a Nimbus bug?

Answer 1

What has just helped me track down the causes of such repaint issues is to dump out the current thread at the point in our application code that is triggering the UI update that ultimately causes the exception: LOGGER.debug("Current thread: " + Thread.currentThread());

If a thread is printed out that is something other than Thread[AWT-EventQueue-0,6,main] (where the numbers can be anything) then you are attempting to perform UI updates outside of the Swing Event Dispatch Thread and repaint issues are almost inevitable.

Making use of SwingUtilities.invokeLater() or .invokeAndWait() may mitigate against this but normally this issue would point to an error in the design of the application. In my case I was (unnecessarily) setting a cell renderer for a JTree as part of updating the tree model.