Cannot open some applications in VisualVM

Question

I am using Ubuntu 14.04 with Oracle JDK 8. I want to inspect performance of my application using VisualVM. I can inspect other applications like JDownloader but I can't inspect my own applications and Eclipse 4.3. Before I made fresh install of Ubuntu, I was using JDK 7 and I have no problem and using it without any configuration. It gives following log.

SEVERE [org.openide.util.RequestProcessor]: Error in RequestProcessor com.sun.tools.visualvm.core.ui.DataSourceWindowManager$1
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unexpected composite type for ThreadInfo
    at sun.management.ThreadInfoCompositeData.validateCompositeData(ThreadInfoCompositeData.java:372)
    at sun.management.ThreadInfoCompositeData.getInstance(ThreadInfoCompositeData.java:68)
    at java.lang.management.ThreadInfo.<init>(ThreadInfo.java:263)
    at java.lang.management.ThreadInfo.from(ThreadInfo.java:794)
Caused: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at sun.reflect.misc.Trampoline.invoke(MethodUtil.java:71)
    at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor9.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at sun.reflect.misc.MethodUtil.invoke(MethodUtil.java:275)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory$CompositeBuilderViaFrom.fromCompositeData(DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory.java:1018)
Caused: java.io.InvalidObjectException: Failed to invoke from(CompositeData)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory.invalidObjectException(DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory.java:1457)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory$CompositeBuilderViaFrom.fromCompositeData(DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory.java:1021)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory$CompositeMapping.fromNonNullOpenValue(DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory.java:919)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory$NonNullMXBeanMapping.fromOpenValue(DefaultMXBeanMappingFactory.java:133)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.ConvertingMethod.fromOpenReturnValue(ConvertingMethod.java:131)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.MXBeanProxy.invoke(MXBeanProxy.java:168)
    at javax.management.MBeanServerInvocationHandler.invoke(MBeanServerInvocationHandler.java:252)
Caused: java.lang.reflect.UndeclaredThrowableException
    at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy8.getThreadInfo(Unknown Source)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.jmx.impl.JmxSupport.isReadOnlyConnection(JmxSupport.java:95)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.jmx.impl.JmxModelImpl.isTakeThreadDumpSupported(JmxModelImpl.java:311)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.application.views.threads.ApplicationThreadsViewProvider.resolveThreads(ApplicationThreadsViewProvider.java:65)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.application.views.threads.ApplicationThreadsViewProvider.supportsViewFor(ApplicationThreadsViewProvider.java:29)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.application.views.threads.ApplicationThreadsViewProvider.supportsViewFor(ApplicationThreadsViewProvider.java:25)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.core.ui.DataSourceViewsManager.getViews(DataSourceViewsManager.java:116)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.core.ui.DataSourceWindowManager.openWindowAndAddView(DataSourceWindowManager.java:169)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.core.ui.DataSourceWindowManager.access$000(DataSourceWindowManager.java:30)
    at com.sun.tools.visualvm.core.ui.DataSourceWindowManager$1.run(DataSourceWindowManager.java:80)
    at org.openide.util.RequestProcessor$Task.run(RequestProcessor.java:1393)
[catch] at org.openide.util.RequestProcessor$Processor.run(RequestProcessor.java:2005)

Wreck

Does JVisualVM run with Java 8 too? – Rothman

@Rothman It is included in JDK 8. – Wreck

Mmh, strange. Unfortunately, I can’t reproduce it here… – Rothman

I have limited time so I profiled my code on another computer with JDK 7 installed. But this question should stay open so someone can solve this in future. – Wreck

Answer 1

run eclipse and your application with jvm parameters -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=us ...
then you will be able profile with jvisualvm.

for eclise put this two lines in eclipse.ini

-Duser.language=en
-Duser.country=us

maybe your pre installed Ubuntu had languge settings as english and you was ok.

Ulland

This solved my issue of being unable to sample CPU whilst profiling a local Wildfly instance, but I'm curious as to why it's these parameters that cause the issue. We're maintaining a multi-language system with containers dependent on these properties and it just doesn't make much sense to change the parameters so that we can profile some function call. – Collie

did not solve my problem :/ Running on windows machine – Millham

Answer 2

you should run visualvm on the same JDK version as your app, look at help->about->details (Java), mine was surprisingly jdk8 instead of jdk13 (I have both), so you can setup JDK version for visualvm manually etc/visualvm.conf, uncomment and setup parameter

visualvm_jdkhome=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-13

Harim

Answer 3

For Windows & IDE plugin users coming here, what worked for me was the following:

• Start the process + VisualVM from your IDE -> After a shgort time the error popped up "Cannot open Application..."
• Then, in VisualVM, manually select the the process and try to connect. -> A Windows dialog pops up asking for permission to connect the the Java process.
• Confirm that connection to the process is allowed. -> Now it should work.

I assume the Windows security dialog is somehow swallowed/ignored by VisualVM.

Foe