org.eclipse.swt.SWTError: Item not added

Question

Does somebody know how to recover a never-starting eclipse when the error "org.eclipse.swt.SWTError: Item not added" is raising againg and again?

I'm using WebSphere Studio Site Developer (Windows) 5.1.0

The only stack trace in the .metadata/log file is:

SESSION ----------------------------------------------------------------------
!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.launcher 4 0 sep 17, 2008 16:39:00.564
!MESSAGE Exception launching the Eclipse Platform:
!STACK
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: org.eclipse.swt.SWTError: Item not added
at java.lang.Throwable.<init>(Throwable.java)
at java.lang.Throwable.<init>(Throwable.java)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWTError.<init>(SWTError.java:82)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWTError.<init>(SWTError.java:71)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2358)
at org.eclipse.swt.SWT.error(SWT.java:2262)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.error(Widget.java:385)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Menu.createItem(Menu.java:464)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.MenuItem.<init>(MenuItem.java:77)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.AcceleratorMenu.setAccelerators(AcceleratorMenu.java:177)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WWinKeyBindingService.updateAccelerators(WWinKeyBindingService.java:316)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WWinKeyBindingService.clear(WWinKeyBindingService.java:175)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WWinKeyBindingService.update(WWinKeyBindingService.java:267)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WWinKeyBindingService$1.partActivated(WWinKeyBindingService.java:107)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.PartListenerList$1.run(PartListenerList.java:49)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.InternalPlatform.run(InternalPlatform.java:1006)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.Platform.run(Platform.java:413)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.PartListenerList.firePartActivated(PartListenerList.java:47)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage.firePartActivated(WorkbenchPage.java:1180)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage.onActivate(WorkbenchPage.java:1833)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchWindow$7.run(WorkbenchWindow.java:1496)
at org.eclipse.swt.custom.BusyIndicator.showWhile(BusyIndicator.java:69)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchWindow.setActivePage(WorkbenchWindow.java:1483)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchWindow.restoreState(WorkbenchWindow.java:1363)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.restoreState(Workbench.java:1263)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.access$10(Workbench.java:1223)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench$12.run(Workbench.java:1141)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.InternalPlatform.run(InternalPlatform.java:1006)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.Platform.run(Platform.java:413)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.openPreviousWorkbenchState(Workbench.java:1093)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.init(Workbench.java:870)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.run(Workbench.java:1373)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.boot.InternalBootLoader.run(InternalBootLoader.java:858)
at org.eclipse.core.boot.BootLoader.run(BootLoader.java:461)
at java.lang.reflect.AccessibleObject.invokeL(AccessibleObject.java:207)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:271)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:291)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:747)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:583)

Answer 1

Well, some things you can try are:

1. Delete workspace .metadata dir. Obviously you will lose your workbench configuration.
2. Rename your .metadata dir. Start Eclipse, and you will have a new .metadata dir. Close Eclipse, delete the new dir, and rename back the original dir. It sometimes works.

Answer 2

Does restarting your computer resolve the problem with being able to open the workspace? There is a forum post (http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3131484#3131484) that describes a similar problem with an identical stack trace as the one shown above. In the post, the author mentions that their machine was low on resources (they did not specify what type of resources were running low).

If restarting your computer does not work, you may want to try starting eclipse with the clean option:

eclipse -clean

The clean option will clean out any caches that Eclipse has created.

If all else fails, you may want to open a bug for this problem at https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/. Including a copy of your workspace (if possible), and including the stack trace in the bug would be helpful information for the person trying to diagnose the problem.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

I had exactly the same problem. I did not restart my machine, and just used "eclipse -clean" to start eclipse. It worked. Thanks Jon for the hint.

Answer 4

HI,

Check the task manager, whether any java process(java.exe or javaw.exe) running even after the closing of workbench. Kill those processes. You will get this error resolved