Bug#683930: eclipse: 3.8.0~rc4-1 exits with log error: Unable to acquire application

[Jakub Adam]

Hi,

On 6.8.2012 04:41, JS wrote:
> I ran the eclipse 3.8.0 gotten straight from eclipse.org, without any change to my existing configuration or
> selection of java alternatives (of Oracle jre) and it ran perfectly fine. Further, I did not run eclipse as root.

Tarball from Eclipse.org is quite different in some aspects, it can write to any file in its installation
and because it carries all required libraries inside, it will work almost anywhere independent on the system.
It won't help much in investigating of this issue.

But you said Eclipse won't start even without your ~/.eclipse, so the problem is not there but somewhere else.

One test that can say us something more is running Eclipse with enabled OSGi console. Execute from the shell:

   eclipse -console -consoleLog -noExit

After a while you should be presented with the console, it should keep running even after Eclipse terminates
with error. Type 'ss' in the shell. Then you will see a list of loaded plugins like this:

id      State       Bundle
0       ACTIVE      org.eclipse.osgi_3.8.0.dist
1       ACTIVE      org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator_1.0.300.dist
2       ACTIVE      com.ibm.icu_4.4.2.v20110823
3       RESOLVED    com.jcraft.jsch_0.1.42
4       RESOLVED    javax.el_2.2.0
5       RESOLVED    javax.servlet_3.0.0.v201103241327
6       RESOLVED    javax.servlet.jsp_2.2.0.v201103241327
7       RESOLVED    org.apache.ant_1.8.3.v20120321-1730
8       RESOLVED    org.apache.commons.codec_1.4.0
9       RESOLVED    org.apache.commons.httpclient_3.1.0
10      RESOLVED    org.apache.commons.logging_1.0.4.v20080605-1930
...

Look if there are any bundles in INSTALLED State. Those are the ones that had some problem in initialization.
Run 'diag <bundle numeric id>' to see more information on that plugin, like any unresolved dependencies.

You can read some more information about OSGi console in this article [1].

> If the same upstream source works fine on my system but the debian package does not, isn't this more
> likely to be a packaging issue?

Maybe, I can't say for sure right now, as I don't have enough information yet. Post here an output from your
OSGi console session, perhaps try to answer some questions from my previous mail. Can you run distribution
Eclipse with OpenJDK? Is a different user (with clean $HOME) able to run it?

> A similar issue arose with 3.7.2 in the earlier bug referenced in my email.

This was a problem with Oracle Java and its hardcoded search path for JNI libraries that doesn't include
/usr/lib/jni, where JNI libraries are placed according to Debian guidelines. Eventually we decided to put a
workaround patch into SWT package because many people are still using Oracle Java [2].

Nevertheless, with SWT 3.8.0 this should be fixed and there is no mention of ~/.swt/lib/linux/x86 in your error
logs, so your problem seems to have a different cause.

Regards,

Jakub

[1] http://www.eclipsezone.com/eclipse/forums/t99010.html
[2] http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-java/swt-gtk.git;a=commit;h=c4fe7237fef825b2643993a7cf5e4b8cc1dc0285