JDeveloper 11gR2 won't start

Hello all, I just wanted to share with you a workaround to "restart" your JDeveloper 11gR2 (11.1.2.3) if it is not starting. I struggle with this for several hours, until I found some documentation that helped me out.

My case

• JDeveloepr 11gR2 (11.1.2.3)
• OS = Win Vista Sp2 
• RAM= 4GB
• Installation by default (C:\Oracle\Middleware).

I'm developing an ADF Essentials application and after updating some extensions my JDeveloper installation stopped working. I did several reinstallations and registry cleaning but nothing worked, JDeveloper just didn't start and it freezed when "Restoring Editors":

Fortunately, I found this blog: http://adfhowto.blogspot.in/2011/03/troubleshooting-jdeveloper-will-not.html which gives a tip about the JDeveloper preferences directory. What it says is that you can delete or modify the name of the JDeveloper preferences directory, and JDeveloper will create another one with default preferences. Something you should be aware of is that this procedure deletes all your preferences: SVN, extension preferences, general preferences...etc. So it's up to you.

The Solution

I decided that this procedure fitted my needs and started to search for that directory. There is an easy way to find the preferences directory:

• Open a DOS terminal (cmd).
• Go to your JDeveloper installation directory (in my case C:\Oracle\Middleware\jdeveloper\).
• We need to execute the file jdev.exe which is in {JDEV_INSTALLATION_DIR}\jdev\bin
• Type this command: jdev.exe -verbose

The previous procedure will try to start JDeveloper and will show all the steps required to do so. Look for the -Dide.pref.dir.base entry:

The final step is: go to that location and rename or delete (rename is better) the directory system11.x.x.x... for something else. Restart JDeveloper and it will start and create a new directory with default preferences.

I hope this post helps so you don't have to spend several hours trying to put JDeveloper to work.

see ya!