Kettle / Pentaho Data Integration - unable to create a Database Connection (XulException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException)

Question

Having finally got kettle to start and not hang, I still cannot use it to much avail, as when I try to create a new Database Connection (after creating a new Transformation) I get this error:

org.pentaho.ui.xul.XulException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

Thereafter, I get this more general error for the same actions:

General error in dialog

In order to get the first 'java...TargetException' again, I have to close and restart kettle.
Note, this also happens when I load an existing kettle job and try to edit its database connection.

Could this be a configuration issue? A missing or misplaced file ? What is the Target that is failing to be Invoked? Thanks in advance for your help.

My config:

macos 10.12.6 (Sierra)
Pentaho Data Integration (or kettle) 7.1.0
java version "9.0.4"

Tongs

Answer 1

As I found out from the Pentaho Data Integration forum, it was a matter of my version of Java.
I uninstalled Java 9 and installed Java 8 and then no longer got this error.

Tongs

Answer 2

There is a .kettle directory in your home directory. In this directory, you may have a db-cache-<some.numbers> file. If that is the case: stop spoon, delete the db-cache file, and restart spoon.

If it doesn't work, an other file in that directory may be corrupted.

Redwood

Thanks, @AlainD. Actually, switching from Java 9 to Java 8 did the trick. I no longer got this error after. Note, when I first read your answer, I had no db-cache-<some.numbers> file in my .kettle folder. I only had 3 simple files. Now that I got kettle to work and used it a little, I have 7 files there, including db.cache-7.1.0.0-12. Thank anyway. Your answer is still noteworthy for a new user like me learning about this environment, for future issues. – Tongs

This db cache is to speed up Kettle in searching the databases tables, column names, column types,... When something changes in the database schema, this cache needs to be re-synchronized. Which you can do from the top menu Tools/Database/Clear cache. You can just delete them. – Redwood

Answer 3

As mentioned in Pentaho Components Reference, Only Java 8 is supported by Pentaho Data Integration, So it is not recommended to try out Java 9 or Java 11 at the moment (until they release a version which supports above Java 8).

Barrows

Answer 4

Give PENTAHO_JAVA_HOME=<jdk-1.8> path to environment variable. This addition has resolved my issue.

Aborning