Eclipse 3.5 customized with some plugins fails to start on target machine

Question

i have been creating a customized Eclipse Version with some specific Plugins (CDT, AVR-Development) and after configuring and testing successfully on my machine, I zipped the eclipse-Folder and send it to my client to install onto the target machine.

But when he tries to start eclipse he gets the following error in the Logfile:

    !SESSION 2010-06-28 19:24:57.856 -----------------------------------------------eclipse.buildId=unknown
java.version=1.6.0_20
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=de_DE
Framework arguments:  -product org.eclipse.epp.package.cpp.product
Command-line arguments:  -os win32 -ws win32 -arch x86 -product org.eclipse.epp.package.cpp.product

!ENTRY org.eclipse.osgi 4 0 2010-06-28 19:24:58.870
!MESSAGE Bundle reference:file:org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator_1.0.101.R35x_v20090807-1100.jar@1:start not found.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.osgi 4 0 2010-06-28 19:24:58.886
!MESSAGE Application error
!STACK 1
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unable to acquire application service. Ensure that the org.eclipse.core.runtime bundle is resolved and started (see config.ini).
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.start(EclipseAppLauncher.java:74)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:368)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:179)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:559)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:514)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1311)

This looks like some files are missing or the configuration is wrong, but i can't reproduce the error. I removed my workspace, moved the eclipse Folder around, tried everything under another User-Account.

Does anyone have an Idea why this works on my machine (it was a vanilla Win7-Installation) but fails on his (also, Win7 - fresh install) ?

FYI, here's the configuration file, works on my machine:

#This configuration file was written by: org.eclipse.equinox.internal.frameworkadmin.equinox.EquinoxFwConfigFileParser
#Thu Jun 10 14:10:03 CEST 2010
org.eclipse.update.reconcile=false
eclipse.p2.profile=epp.package.cpp
osgi.instance.area.default=@user.home/workspace
osgi.framework=file\:plugins/org.eclipse.osgi_3.5.2.R35x_v20100126.jar
osgi.bundles=reference\:file\:org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator_1.0.101.R35x_v20090807-1100.jar@1\:start
org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator.configUrl=file\:org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator/bundles.info
eclipse.product=org.eclipse.platform.ide
osgi.splashPath=platform\:/base/plugins/org.eclipse.platform
osgi.framework.extensions=
osgi.bundles.defaultStartLevel=4
eclipse.p2.data.area=@config.dir/../p2/
eclipse.application=org.eclipse.ui.ide.workbench

Any help is highly appreciated, thanks! :)

Answer 1

Are you using a .product to produce your custom Eclipse build? Or are you adding plugins to an existing Eclipse build?

Either way, I'd recommend uzipping exactly what you sent your customer on a different machine than your development box. It may give you a better chance to reproduce the problem.

Based on the traces, this product "org.eclipse.epp.package.cpp.product" is in use. My guess is that the plugin that defines the Application referenced by that product is either missing from your zip, or one of its dependencies is missing.

If you add -console and -noExit as command line arguments, you can get to the OSGi prompt. You can then type 'ss' to see the status of all the bundles. If you then type 'start ' for any resolved bundles you can see why they didn't start. This sort of debugging can be helpful when you are out of other ideas.

Using the 'ss' command on your system that is working and the system that is not will help identify if you are missing any bundles or have bundles in different states.