How do I prevent Eclipse from hanging on startup?

Question

I am using Eclipse 3.3 (\"Europa\"). Periodically, Eclipse takes an inordinately long time (perhaps forever) to start up. The only thing I can see in the Eclipse log is:

Answer 1

Watch out for zero-byte .plugin files in the {WORKSPACE-DIR}/.metadata/.plugins folder. I just deleted one in there and it fixed my freezing issues.