This section deals with problems you may experience while using or installing jEdit. Problems that aren't OS specific are listed under “General Problems”.
1. General Problems | |
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Q: | jEdit won't start. What should I do? |
A: | If you don't have a clue as to why you cannot run
jEdit, it's best to perform a step-by-step diagnosis. If it
never worked before, begin by finding the Java application
loader you are using: Next, find where you have installed jEdit. You should
look for the file Once you have both files, run the Java loader with the
If jEdit does load using this procedure, you need to examine the “shortcut” loading mechanism you wish to use. On Linux and MacOS X, you need to find and examine the
On Windows, if you are using a batch script to run
jEdit, the same points (other than file permissions) apply
to examining But it worked before! It just stopped working after an upgrade. What should I do?If it used to work for an older version and no longer
works, it could be that you have some old crud (bad
settings, unsupported plugins) in your jEdit
settings directory ( If at this point you're still stuck, ask for help on the jedit-users mailing list, the jEdit Community “Installation” message board or on IRC. You're bound to find someone quickly. |
Q: | After jEdit starts, I can't see all of the plugins I have downloaded. How can I make them appear? |
A: | If you use jEdit's Plugin Manager to download and
install plugins, your plugins will be found in the
The default location of the settings directory depends
on your operating system. You can find out its location
during a jEdit session by evaluating
The settings directory can be changed by using the
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Q: | During an editing session I get an error message about an “OutOfMemoryError” while working with a large file or performing a lengthy operation. The message reappears every time I retry the operation. How can I prevent this? |
A: | The memory requirements of jEdit vary greatly depending on how many files are in use, and what plugins you are using. You can see how much it is using in the status bar. One solution that often works is to set or increase
the allocation of memory to the heap for Java objects
created by the Java Virtual Machine in which jEdit is
running. Add a command line option
For more information about JVM options, see the page on JVM options in the users guide. On Windows, if you are using the If out of memory errors occur while running a build or compilation operation from within jEdit, you can also have the operation run in an external process rather than inside the same Java Virtual Machine running jEdit. The AntFarm plugin, for example, lets you select this approach as a configuration option. In other cases, you can run an external program using the command line interface of the Console plugin, which will capture and display the output of the external process and in many cases parse the output for error information. |
Q: | My textarea gets confused about the end of the buffer or in some other way corrupted (the characters are in the wrong place on the screen, or I get an exception when I scroll to the bottom). What should I do? |
A: | Before jEdit 5.0, it happened to me quite a bit too. I use this macro to help avoid the need to restart jEdit. /** Reset_TextArea.bsh */ view.splitVertically(); view.unsplitCurrent(); Run this, and jEdit creates a new TextArea for you, one that is in a valid state. If you can reproduce the steps you took to cause this, please submit a bug report that details what plugins/versions you were using, and how to reproduce it. It may be specific to a file you are editing, or a particular combination of settings you are using, or sequence of actions you performed. |
Q: | Why is jEdit's window movement and resizing so buggy? |
A: | Perhaps the option to let Java draw window borders is enabled. This option can lead to strange behavior on some Java versions and operating systems. Disable it in the Appearance tab of the > dialog box. |
Q: | What should I do when the installer displays the message, No such file or directory ? |
A: | The full message that you may receive from the Java application launcher begins as follows: Exception in thread "main" java.util.zip.ZipException: No such file or directory ... This means that the Java application launcher cannot read the jar archive file that you specified on the command line. If your Java runtime environment otherwise runs properly, then either you have named the incorrect file name or the installation file is corrupt or incomplete. Check the file name, download the installer again if necessary, and be sure to follow any specific instructions for your operating system posted on the jEdit web site. |
Q: | After downloading
Exception in main(), NoClassDefFoundError: jeditXXXinstall/jar. What am I doing wrong? |
A: | You need to specify the |
Q: | jEdit crashed the JVM, what gives? |
A: | It's important to realise that java applications should never do this. The problem is almost certainly a bug in the JVM. Problems of this nature are often tricky to solve. Depending on your platform, there should be information logged about what caused the crash to occur. For Unix type systems you will likely get an error in the console (and for Mac OS X you may also get a report in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/JavaApplicationStub.crash.log). |
Q: | jEdit locks up or hangs while I'm doing lots of things! |
A: | Sometimes, it can be due to a deadlock, or an infinite loop, or something else. You need to obtain a thread dump from the time of hang, and attach that as a textfile to your bug report, explaining what you were doing at the time. One way to obtain a thread dump, is to run jEdit
with Another way to get a thread dump is to run jEdit as you normally would, then run visualvm. You can right click on the jEdit process from within visualvm and choose "thread dump". |
Q: | I can't remember all these multiple-key shortcuts! |
A: | Install ShortcutDisplay plugin for help. |
Q: | Why is jEdit so slow to start up? |
A: | Some plugins require a lot of setup - chances are if you disable one, you will be able to determine the culprit. jEdit normally starts up quite quickly without plugins.
You should be able to see which (if any) plugins are causing an excesively long delay. |
Q: | Why is jEdit so slow? |
A: | There may be many causes for this. Java by nature is more demanding on hardware than native applications. Modern computers should not have much problem with this. The most likely cause is plugins that parse buffers or do other computationally expensive operations. These include XML, JavaSideKick, and CodeAid. If performance is important to you, installing a whole batch of plugins in one go is probably not a very good idea. Install them one at a time, so you can evaluate the effects of each. |
Q: | Go to left/top/bottom/right docking area does not work for some plugins? |
A: | The plugin is missing a
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2. Unix/Linux Problems | |
Q: | I'm trying to install jEdit on Linux, but I keep getting strange error messages. Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: installer/Install (Unsupported major.minor version 49.0) Exception in thread "main" java.awt.AWTError: Cannot load AWT toolkit: gnu.java.awt.peer.gtk.GtkToolkit |
A: | Make sure the version of Java you are running is Oracle Java 1.8 or higher.
In debian/ubuntu,
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Q: | After installing jEdit on Linux, running the
Warning: JAVA_HOME environment variable not set How can I fix this? |
A: | Your |
3. Windows Problems | |
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Q: | When I try to run The JEditLauncher component does not appear to be installed. |
A: | The dialog presenting this message asks if you would
like to install the launcher. Select
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Q: | When I try to run the jEdit installation package in Windows, I get an error message, Error opening registration key "software\javasoft\java runtime environment". How can I fix this? |
A: | The problem is not with jEdit but may be caused by
your installation of the Java runtime environment. Under
Windows, Sun's Java application loader relies on entries in
the Windows registry to find the files that create the
runtime environment and a Java virtual machine. The loader
( |
Q: | When trying to install jEdit on Windows Me with an
MS-DOS prompt, after entering |
A: | You should confirm that you have a Java runtime
environment installed, which will include
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Q: | When I run jEdit on Windows, it flashes, blinks, and doesn't display correctly! Why is your program so buggy? |
A: | A frequent cause of this problem is buggy video drivers and/or a buggy DirectDraw implementation. A workaround is to disable Java's use of DirectDraw by adding the following option to the Java virtual machine command line: -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true |