MacOSX Snow Leopard and Eclipse: Error starting Eclipse (No Java virtual machine…)

Question

This is so frustrating.

I did no update of java nor eclipse and suddenly I can\'t open eclipse. I even didn\'t install any other programs. Here is the error:

Answer 1

Editing the plist file is not the recommended way of setting the JVM. See http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_run_Eclipse%3F#Find_the_JVM and it points you to http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse.ini#Specifying_the_JVM

Basically inside Eclipse.app/MacOS/eclipse.ini is where you'll want to specify command line arguments that get passed to eclipse by default. Granted the plist's array of arguments are also used, but that isn't how the Eclipse docs themselves recommend setting arguments (and it is possible that as a result, it might get wiped when you update Eclipse again).

You'd want to remove the vm entry from that Array in the plist and instead add the following in the eclipse.ini before "-vmargs":

-vm
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home/bin/java