JDI Thread Evaluations has encountered a problem

Question

I'm running Eclipse for Java. I created a DOM version of an XML file. Now I want to change an attribute of an element in the file. I called a method that called a method in the class that controls the DOM, and I got a dialog box saying "JDI Thread Evaluations has encountered a problem. Exception processing async thread queue" while debugging.

I'm a relative newbie at Java and have not come across such an error, and I have no idea what's causing it.

If anyone has any suggestions as to the cause of the problem and/or ways to fix it ...

Thanks so much!

Etheleneethelin

Answer 1

The Java Debug Interface (JDI) is part of the Java Platform Debugger Architecture. One apparent way to trigger this exception occurs when an object's toString() method carelessly returns null. You might want to try a different debugger, and it wouldn't hurt to validate your XML. As noted in comments, the problem may appear intermittently, suggesting a thread synchronization problem.

Custom

interestingly enough, the next time I tried to run/debug the program, I didn't have any trouble. – Etheleneethelin

Indeed, several discussions mentioned intermittent failures. This always makes me think of thread synchronization problems: a deferred initialization, for example, that might appear null to one thread but not another. – Custom

I agree with thread synchronization issue, I solved this JDI problem by synchronizing one method. – Jansenism

Answer 2

Keep an eye on your "Watch" expressions - if you don't need them, remove them all. Sometimes certain watch expressions have caused this error message for me.

This might also explain why it happens to intermittently for people (sometimes they have watch assignments that cause the error, however restarting or removing the right watch can solve the issue without them knowing it.)

Strepphon

Glad to help - it was driving me crazy too – Strepphon

Does "Watch" mean "Expressions"? I am new to Eclipse. – Parvis

I wonder why it should fail even if watch is failing. Eclipse should ignore and not repeatedly annoy debugging session. However thanks it helped. – Dipetalous

Answer 3

This error occurs quiet a few times when you debugging. You can clean this up by removing all watch statements and all breakpoints and restarting Eclipse.

Mariko

Answer 4

The problem can also occur if source lookup is incorrectly configured. For example lets say one wants to watch the expression foo.bar(). Now if source lookup is incorrectly configured, the debugger is unable to resolve the binding for expression foo (see this eclipse bug). Then the invocation of .bar() will fail with a NullPointerException.

Precisian

Answer 5

This problem may occur if you have "Detail Formatters" configured for specific classes (in Eclipse: Java -> Debug -> Detail Formatters). Try to disable them.

Taeniacide

Answer 6

This was replicated in eclipse when I was debugging the expression which reads: "", which is just an empty expression.

So, if you're getting this problem, one solution may be to check to see if one of your expressions is empty or similar, then aptly delete it.

Monolith