10.01.08

“the eclipse executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared library” AKA Fixing eclipse for mac os x

Posted in programming at 15:11 by dalore

Recently I did an upgrade of eclipse within eclipse using the “software updates” feature as well as adding some packages like svn and coldfusion for eclipse. When I restarted I ran into a small issue, it wouldn’t start.

The error message I kept getting was

the eclipse executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared library

Now googling error messages normally shows someone whose experienced it and a solution, not in this case.

Digging around I found the the eclipse binary in:

/Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS

There is a file called eclipse and an eclipse.ini. Running this binary gave me this error:

 ./eclipse
dlopen(../../../plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.carbon.macosx_1.0.100.v20080509-1800, 2): image not found

Indeed I verified that such a file no longer existed, I did notice something similarly named. I edited the eclipse.ini file and replaced it:

../../../plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.carbon.macosx_1.0.101.R34x_v20080731

It then started up as normal.

42 Comments »

  1. Karen Collett Said:

    October 19, 2008 at 23:50

    I just had the exact same problem bug googling worked for me–because of this blog post! Thank you!

  2. Felix Said:

    October 22, 2008 at 14:20

    Thanks a lot. I had the same issue with my eclipse @macosx….

  3. David Rees Said:

    November 3, 2008 at 15:44

    Thanks, solved the problem for me also.

  4. Joe Said:

    November 15, 2008 at 16:01

    ditto

  5. Greg Said:

    November 22, 2008 at 18:37

    perfecto!

  6. Chris Said:

    November 24, 2008 at 00:50

    You, sir, are a lifesaver!

  7. Jeremy Said:

    November 27, 2008 at 14:46

    Fantastic, you saved my day!!!

  8. Florian Said:

    November 28, 2008 at 23:52

    Thanks, this saved my day :)

  9. kuba Said:

    November 29, 2008 at 19:25

    You saved my day.

  10. Jonathan Said:

    December 1, 2008 at 17:19

    Thanks!

    This fixed it for me too

  11. Ray Said:

    December 3, 2008 at 12:36

    You saved my day!

  12. Buzz Said:

    December 9, 2008 at 09:05

    saved me too! - clearly an issue worth letting the ecplise ppl know about, if you know how.

  13. Alan Said:

    December 11, 2008 at 15:32

    Thanks much. Hard to imagine that a standard update (mine was just some ruby-related files) would do this and that a complete non-launch wasn’t caught/tested. Oh well. Onward and upward.

  14. Alex Said:

    December 13, 2008 at 14:26

    Nice! Thank you for posting this. How can they let something like this go by? lol

  15. Ed Said:

    December 24, 2008 at 17:33

    Thanks a lot for the help. I was scared that I have to re-install my Eclipse.

  16. Petes Said:

    December 28, 2008 at 07:53

    This happened to me too. I fixed it by your instructions. Thanks.

  17. Dan Walmsley Said:

    December 29, 2008 at 08:37

    Brilliant, thank you so much. I would have torn my hair out without this.

  18. Mike Said:

    February 1, 2009 at 11:05

    Brilliant, you just saved me from re-installing Eclipse! Thanks

  19. Varun Said:

    February 4, 2009 at 20:27

    Thanks!

  20. Nick Said:

    February 6, 2009 at 16:54

    So which file do i modify to fix it?

    rustcat07@yahoo.com

  21. dalore Said:

    February 6, 2009 at 17:35

    eclipse.ini

  22. Mike Said:

    February 23, 2009 at 10:37

    I was having this problem on Linux. You might be interested to know that the solution in Linux seems to be to rename, in Eclipse.ini, the following line:

    org.eclipse.platform

    to

    org.eclipse.update

  23. Berkan Gursoy Said:

    March 5, 2009 at 20:24

    Thanks very much for letting people know about your experience with this. Has helped me solve the same problem.

  24. Tiago Carvalho Said:

    March 5, 2009 at 22:05

    Thank you very much for the tip :)

    Worked okay for me!
    [[ ]]

  25. Jason Said:

    March 8, 2009 at 19:37

    Just installed the Flex 3 Plugin for eclipse and ran into this problem. Thanks for the fix!

  26. Lore Biga Said:

    March 25, 2009 at 12:06

    Still current (and working).
    Tnx,
    L

  27. Eric Said:

    April 7, 2009 at 06:51

    Thanks! Exactly same problem I encountered and it’s resolved on my Mac OSX

  28. Mino Said:

    April 24, 2009 at 17:07

    Thanks It fixed the problem!
    I had the same problem upgrading eclipse from the 3.4.0 to the 3.4.2 version on mac os x!

  29. Tom Said:

    May 30, 2009 at 17:46

    Thanks, fixed my problem. Much appreciated.

  30. IanSR Said:

    June 2, 2009 at 15:27

    Same problem on OS X (10.5) with Eclipse Ganeymede after doing an update of core packages + SVN, and removing PyDev. I had to change the following in eclipse.ini:

    from: org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.carbon.macosx_1.0.100.v20080509-1800
    to: org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.carbon.macosx_1.0.101.R34x_v20080731

  31. OS X Eclipse startup issues « Tales of a Developer Said:

    June 3, 2009 at 08:55

    […] to locate its companion shared library.” Google to the rescue, and I found this blog entry on MJLab.com. It was my problem, and it worked. I’m back up and running on OS X […]

  32. Amine Said:

    June 12, 2009 at 09:09

    Think you, you saved me lot of time

  33. Tom Said:

    June 12, 2009 at 14:21

    Worked great. You rock!

  34. jaybee Said:

    July 23, 2009 at 10:56

    thanks! totally saved me.

  35. Terry Weymouth Said:

    August 31, 2009 at 12:14

    Same problem. Fix worked. thanks!

  36. PH Said:

    September 7, 2009 at 19:09

    Man you are the guy!!!
    I was hopeless about it!!

    Thank you very much!

  37. Paolo Said:

    September 13, 2009 at 10:13

    lifesaver!
    fixed in 1 minute, thanks

  38. Tony Said:

    October 29, 2009 at 10:49

    Thanks for this. Amazing that this (critical, IMO) bug hasn’t been fixed in over a year.

  39. Jana Harper Said:

    December 23, 2009 at 04:02

    Hi, I experienced a similar problem while doing a fresh install of MyEclipse 8.0 with Pulse. I outlined the solution on my blog: http://blog.superwomyn.com/?p=3
    Thanks!

  40. Nik Said:

    February 6, 2010 at 06:08

    Thanks for the solution! I had made a bunch of Eclipse app files for different data directories - one for each workspace I use regularly. I updated Eclipse, and none of them would start anymore. But the Eclipse.app started fine.
    So I took the eclipse.ini in Eclipse.app and copied it into all my custom startup app files, and voila everything works again.

  41. Second » Ubuntu MyEclipse7.5 一个错误的修复过程 Said:

    March 21, 2010 at 10:18

    […] 没办法先google吧，看到其他也有很多同学发贴咨询的，大意就是说自己使用自动更新后再次运行就提示此错误了。找了好几圈就是没有看到成功案例的。最后看到一个使用mac os x系统的同学修复成功了（点这里查看原帖）。可是我使用的系统是Linux（Ubuntu发行版，ps：最近10.04预览版已经relase，据说界面已经耳目一新了。），另外该同学杯具了，又装重新装了一次MyEclipse，题外话，如果他花点时间找出问题，我是不是就可以少花2个小时来折腾了？？，也许正真悲剧的人是我，大好的时间阿，就浪费掉了。好了继续是说我是怎么解决的。 […]

  42. mateo Said:

    June 17, 2010 at 09:21

    HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH

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