8 Nov 2015

IntelliJ 'java: cannot find JDK 1.8'

I upgraded to IntelliJ 15.0 a few days ago and was initially seeing the following exception when trying to compile:

module-name

java: cannot find JDK 1.8

I’ve been compiling against JDK 1.8 for a while now using IntelliJ 14 so I wasn’t sure what was going on.

I checked my project settings and they seemed fine:

The error message suggested I look in the logs to find more information but I wasn’t sure where those live! I eventually found out the answer via the comments of this support ticket although I later found a post describing it in more detail.

Looking into the logs revealed the following error message:

$ less /Users/markneedham/Library/Logs/IntelliJIdea15/idea.log

2015-11-05 16:31:28,429 [ 428129]   INFO - figurations.GeneralCommandLine - Cannot run program "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_71.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java" (in directory "/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 15.app/Contents/bin"): error=2, No such file or directory
java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_71.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java" (in directory "/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 15.app/Contents/bin"): error=2, No such file or directory
	at java.lang.ProcessBuilder.start(ProcessBuilder.java:1048)
	at com.intellij.execution.configurations.GeneralCommandLine.startProcess(GeneralCommandLine.java:368)
	at com.intellij.execution.configurations.GeneralCommandLine.createProcess(GeneralCommandLine.java:354)
	at com.intellij.execution.process.OSProcessHandler.<init>(OSProcessHandler.java:38)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager$3.startProcess(MavenServerManager.java:359)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager$3.execute(MavenServerManager.java:345)
	at com.intellij.execution.rmi.RemoteProcessSupport.a(RemoteProcessSupport.java:206)
	at com.intellij.execution.rmi.RemoteProcessSupport.acquire(RemoteProcessSupport.java:139)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager.create(MavenServerManager.java:163)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager.create(MavenServerManager.java:71)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.RemoteObjectWrapper.getOrCreateWrappee(RemoteObjectWrapper.java:41)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager$9.execute(MavenServerManager.java:525)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager$9.execute(MavenServerManager.java:522)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.RemoteObjectWrapper.perform(RemoteObjectWrapper.java:76)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.server.MavenServerManager.applyProfiles(MavenServerManager.java:522)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.applyProfiles(MavenProjectReader.java:369)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.doReadProjectModel(MavenProjectReader.java:98)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.access$300(MavenProjectReader.java:42)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader$1.doProcessParent(MavenProjectReader.java:422)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader$1.doProcessParent(MavenProjectReader.java:399)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.processRepositoryParent(MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.java:84)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.process(MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.java:62)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.resolveInheritance(MavenProjectReader.java:425)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.doReadProjectModel(MavenProjectReader.java:95)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.access$300(MavenProjectReader.java:42)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader$1.doProcessParent(MavenProjectReader.java:422)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader$1.doProcessParent(MavenProjectReader.java:399)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.processRepositoryParent(MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.java:84)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.process(MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.java:62)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.resolveInheritance(MavenProjectReader.java:425)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.doReadProjectModel(MavenProjectReader.java:95)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.access$300(MavenProjectReader.java:42)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader$1.doProcessParent(MavenProjectReader.java:422)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader$1.doProcessParent(MavenProjectReader.java:399)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.processRepositoryParent(MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.java:84)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.process(MavenParentProjectFileProcessor.java:62)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.resolveInheritance(MavenProjectReader.java:425)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.doReadProjectModel(MavenProjectReader.java:95)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectReader.readProject(MavenProjectReader.java:53)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProject.read(MavenProject.java:626)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsTree.doUpdate(MavenProjectsTree.java:564)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsTree.doAdd(MavenProjectsTree.java:509)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsTree.update(MavenProjectsTree.java:470)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsTree.updateAll(MavenProjectsTree.java:441)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsProcessorReadingTask.perform(MavenProjectsProcessorReadingTask.java:60)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsProcessor.doProcessPendingTasks(MavenProjectsProcessor.java:134)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsProcessor.access$100(MavenProjectsProcessor.java:30)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsProcessor$2.run(MavenProjectsProcessor.java:109)
	at org.jetbrains.idea.maven.utils.MavenUtil$7.run(MavenUtil.java:464)
	at com.intellij.openapi.application.impl.ApplicationImpl$8.run(ApplicationImpl.java:365)
	at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
	at org.jetbrains.ide.PooledThreadExecutor$1$1.run(PooledThreadExecutor.java:55)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: error=2, No such file or directory
	at java.lang.UNIXProcess.forkAndExec(Native Method)
	at java.lang.UNIXProcess.<init>(UNIXProcess.java:248)
	at java.lang.ProcessImpl.start(ProcessImpl.java:134)
	at java.lang.ProcessBuilder.start(ProcessBuilder.java:1029)
	... 55 more

Somewhere I had a JDK 1.7 defined which no longer existed on my machine. I actually only have one JDK installed at the moment:

$ /usr/libexec/java_home -V
Matching Java Virtual Machines (1):
    1.8.0_51, x86_64:	"Java SE 8"	/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home

A bit of exploring led me to 'Platform Settings' which is where the culprit was:

That setting lives actually lives in /Users/markneedham/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdea15/options/jdk.table.xml and once I removed it IntelliJ resumed normal service.

About the author

I'm currently working on short form content at ClickHouse. I publish short 5 minute videos showing how to solve data problems on YouTube @LearnDataWithMark. I previously worked on graph analytics at Neo4j, where I also co-authored the O'Reilly Graph Algorithms Book with Amy Hodler.