[eclipse] Eclipse executable launcher error: Unable to locate companion shared library

I had Eclipse Indigo installed on my computer with the Android plugin and it was working perfectly for about two weeks. Today, I updated java and quicktime then restarted my computer. When it booted back up, eclipse had completely vanished - all the program files have completely disappeared. When I try to reinstall it, I get an error message that says

The Eclipse executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared library.

What happened and how can I fix it?

I got similar error sometime back. I had copied the eclipse setup from another laptop to mine. The issue with my setup was that path of the "--launcher.library" in the eclipse.ini file. The path in --launcher.library was that of the old machine and hence I was getting the error

I changed the path of "--launcher.library" in eclipse.ini to the path of eclipse on my laptop and the issue got resolved. I hope this is helpful to someone is getting this error.

I had this issue on Linux (CentOS 7 64 bit) with 32-bit Eclipse Neon and 32-bit JRE 8. Non of the answers here or in similar questions were helpful, so I thought it can help someone.

Equinox launcher (eclipse executable) is reading the plugins/ directory and then searches for eclipse_xxxx.so/dll in org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.<os>_<version>/. Typically, the problem is in eclipse.ini pointing to the wrong version of Equinox launcher plugin. But, if the file system uses 64-bit inodes, such as XFS and one of the files gets inode number above 4294967296, then the launcher fails reading the plugins/ directory and this error message pops up. Use ls -li <eclipse>/plugins/ to check the inode numbers.

In my case, moving to another mount with 32-bit inodes resolved the problem.

See: http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/sw/inodes64.html

if you are having two eclipse then sometime this happens

you only have to remove

-startup
plugins\org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.100.v20080509-1800.jar 

from eclipse.ini file beside eclipse.exe(Launcher)

Solution for Mac

Reason: Eclipse copies from one location to other

Solution: Paths change needed in /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS/eclipse.ini

Fix path for plugins\org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.100.v20080509-1800.jar

Mostly this is related to problems on windows with the unzipping it seems. (See other answers here for that).

The second largest issue seems to be that eclipse is not able to find java or finds a java version which is too old or even older eclipse installations.

Here's another take to the latter problem and a small twist to solve it. My work environment is on a linux system, without root access, and with software installations where I can configure which versions to use in a kind of config file. However I have no influence on the way those software packages are installed and they are immutable to me.

I download and untar the latest eclipse as usual to a user disk for which I have write permissions. Then I configure myself an alias to always temporarily cd into the eclipse installation when starting. That regardless of where I work on the file systems, eclipse always finds its correct libraries. It seems in some places, eclipses default search path for java digs out an installation (of java or older eclipses or sth else) in my environment that it really should not use.

Here's the alias: alias eclipse '(pushd /enter_path_to_eclipse_install_dir_here/eclipse ; ./eclipse ; popd)'

Now you can start it normally from e.g. your project or arbitrary work directory:

eclipse

Or also put it in the background

eclipse &

Maybe this helps for people in convoluted work environments.

I encountered this error with the Eclipse 4.10 installer. We had failed to complete the install correctly due to platform security settings and attempted to uninstall but had to do it by hand since no uninstaller was introduced during the failed install. We suspected this corrupted the end result - even after re-installing.

The solution was to use the JVM to launch Eclipse and bypass the launcher executable entirely. The following command successfully launches Eclipse 4.10 (some parameters will change based on the version of Eclipse):

%JDK190%\bin\javaw.exe -jar C:\<fully_qualified_path_to_eclipse>\Eclipse410\plugins\org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.5.200.v20180922-1751.jar -clean -showsplash

After using this command/shortcut to launch Eclipse we had no further errors with Eclipse itself but we weren't able to use the EXE launcher in the future. Even after a year of using this version, the launcher continues to display this same error.

To be clear, you'll have to modify your javaw.exe command to match your system specifications on MS Windows.

Keep shorter folder name, fixed for me.

remove it and run eclipse-installer again without root

open eclipse.ini and replace with this ~

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20120522-1813.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.1.200.v20120522-1813
-product
com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.package.product
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256M
-showsplash
com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.package.product
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256m
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.6
-Xms40m
-Xmx768m
-Declipse.buildId=v21.0.0-531062

this work for me, good luck ~

My experience and advice: Install Eclipse Juno on C: drive.

After download the zip, put it on C:, click the right mouse button -> extract here. Then a folder called eclipse will be created in C: drive.

Then go to Eclipse executable, run it, and all will be ok.

This happened to me when I tried to open eclipse.exe before the .zip file finished extracting. Make sure all dependencies are unzipped or unpacked before opening the .exe.

I have create Demo.exe using Eclipse RCP.

I have run Demo.exe using C-Drive to same error generate like...

Solution : You might changed your drive for example

 C:\Demo.exe to D:\Demo.exe

Step 1 : First Copy/Cut your .exe file like C:\Demo.exe

Step 2 : After Paste another drive like D:\Demo.exe

After executable file launching successfully.

I hope my answer is useful.

I meet this issue after copy a eclipse installation to another pc.I find the eclipse installation auto created the .p2 directory on my c:\Users\xx.p2, and --launcher.library refer to here.So it doesn't exist on my another pc.
My resolution is to reinstall eclipse:
a)Double click eclipse-inst-win64.exe
b)Click to change to advanced mode.
c)Uncheck the Bundle Pool
d)Finish your installation and copy again.
Everything will work well.

Another problem (that I ran into) is that Cygwin's unzip utility (UnZip 6.00 of 20 April 2009, by Cygwin. Original by Info-ZIP.) does not always correctly unzip everything needed for Eclipse to actually run.

Using 7ZIP v9.20 got Eclipse Indigo (3.7.2) up and running for me on Win7 64bit with 32bit JVM and 32bit Eclipse.

(First time I've ever had Cygwin's unzip fail on me...)

I've just encountered the same issue. The problem for me was Windows 7 default unzipper program. It has a problem when it encounters files that have a deep file structure. I read about this issue some time ago but can't recall the article. Fix for me is to unzip the Eclipse download using WinZip (or some other tool which does'nt have this issue).

i have this error message when i use extract the files as follows:

• action\select all
• drag and drow the files to an new folder

Somehow information about the folders get lost

when i use "action\extract to..." it works.

Also, remember to right click on eclipse, then choose Security Unblock

Try running eclipse.exe as administrator or using Eclipse Helios.

Problem happened when I unzipped using Cygwin. Used the Windows XP standard unzip program and it worked.

Also see this related question's answer.

The gist is: Try unzipping it again with a solid unzip tool. Sometimes unzipping goes wrong, especially with the built-in Windows Explorer tool.

I faced this problem and solved it by running Eclipse as admin.

During unzip in a cygwin directory on Win7, .exe and .dll need to be given executable mode. This is the solution from a mintty (or other $TERM) terminal run with cygwin on windows 7:

me@mymachine ~/eclipse
$ find . -name "*.dll" -exec chmod +x {} \;

tried with Juno (eclipse 4.2) freshly unzipped, cygwin 1.7.something

Restart the machine. Solve your problem. Sometimes it happens when you are trying to restart the eclipse and in-between forcefully close it.

I just ran into this myself and found that, indeed, as one post above stated: using cygwin and gunzip or unzip to set up your eclipse environment the permissions on the .exe and .dll files will be incorrect and the JVM will not run them properly.

Quick solution:

#switch to the eclipse target folder
cd /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\) #or wherever you put eclipse
find ./ -regextype posix-extended -mindepth 1 -type f -regex ".*\.exe|.*\.dll" |\
xargs chmod -v 750

I have copied the Eclipse folder from another machine where the path was different and that was the root of this problem. Changing the plugins path in ECLIPSE.INI worked for me !!

I also faced ths problem, I just deleted the extracted file and extracted it again.

I have a .rar file.

This problem occurs when the file is not extracted completely.

I had the same problem when I was trying to install it on Windows 8. But it was an zip composed file.... Ones I unzip and Run "eclipes.exe" file as run As 'Administrator' it was resolved. Now I am enjoying it very well.

Check eclipse.ini, there are two entries like:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20120522-1813.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_64_1.1.200.v20120913-144807

For some twisted reason jars have version in their name - so if you upgrade/have two different version of eclipse( while eclipse.ini is either linked or provided as system wide conf file for eclipse ) it will cause above error.

I had the same message after a system restore with the eclipse folder (V. 3/2020) being located on a second drive (that was NOT restored at the same time, I use it for large files mainly).

Restoring the faulty installations C:\Users<user>.p2 folder to the new installation (referenced in eclipse.ini of the eclipse folder) worked.

I have seen this in MacOS Sierra. Sometimes unzipping the app leaves extended attributes that seem to prevent the startup. The following command line removes extended attributes and seems to fix the problem:

xattr -c Eclipse.app

It also works for other applications that are built on the eclipse framework.

You might changed your drive-letter: once u had installed eclipse on D:\, after windows reinstall the drive-letter is now E:\ (for example).

look into eclipse.ini in your eclipse folder, there are some lines where the drive-letter is still D:\