I'm using Eclipse for Java development. All my sources compile fine and the resulting application compiles fine. However, I keep getting an "red-x" error notification in the Package Explorer.
All my sources in this source directory (too long for the snapshot) compile fine, none of the show the "red-x" error icon.
Any suggestions on how to fix the problem would be highly appreciated.
yeah, this happens sometimes for no apparent reason. You can go to the "Problems"-Tab (right next to console output) and see the error message, so maybe you can narrow it down that way.
I want to start by thanking everyone that answered. But cleaning and rebuilding was not enough in my case because the problem was still there and needed fixing.
Turned out that one of my package directories had accidentally been copied so that an extra directory now existed called "Copy of dagskra" containing Java files with wrong package declarations. In addition the errors in this "new" directory don't show up with a "red-x" in the package that it exists in:
It was the hint of reading the "Problems" tab :-) that turned me into the right direction, so I'm selecting that answer as the accepted answer because this is what I needed:
Snapshot from Problems tab http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/dea26d5dd0.png
Hoping this will help others...
So upon finding that there could be a missing package in the buildpath, thus the red x against the main project, to remove this:
1) go into "Configure Buildpath" of project 2) Java Build Path -> Source Tab - you should see the red x against the missing package/file. if it no longer exists, just "remove" it.
red X begone! :)
Sometimes there are build path errors in .project, and you need to switch to Resource view to actually see the file that is causing the error.
As others have said, bad file references in the build path is often the culprit.
Usually a .jar file that has been moved/deleted. Eclipse expects to find everything referenced on the build path at the location specified, and will complain if not.
Try doing a rebuild. I've found that the red x's don't always disappear until a rebuild is done.
I've run into a similar problem many a time, what happens usually for me is that a java file will say it won't compile in the text editor but in the package explorer it will say it's compiling fine.
Sometimes doing a 'rebuild' or 'clean-build' doesn't work, the files don't actually get built (one has to presume that eclipse thinks the files it has are up to date) and when this happens I usually open up the java build path and just move one of my dependencies down/up the pecking order. This forces eclipse to do a rebuild of everything and it always seems to work.
If you're still having problems try copying the project and seeing if you get the same behaviour and at a last ditch attempt post a bug for eclipse, it may take a while for them to fix but at least you know that you're being heard.
To add to the previous answer, an extreme way of "cleaning" your project is to delete it (that is deleting its reference from the workspace, not deleting the actual files), and then re-import it.
Sometimes, it helps...
FindBugs also puts a red-x against files/packages to indicate static code analysis errors.
I have run through this. My case was more involved. The project was packaged fine from maven command line.
Couple of things I made. 1. One class has many imports that confused eclipse. Cleaning them fixed part of the problem 2. One case was about a Setter, pressing F3 navigating to that Setter although eclipse complained it is not there. So I simply retyped it and it worked fine (even for all other Setters)
I am still struggling with Implicit super constructor Item() is undefined for default constructor. Must define an explicit constructor"
I also experience those misterious error-symbols on packages from time to time. A way to get rid of them that works for me is to effectively remove the JRE System Library from Java Build Path and add it back again.
I encountered this problem today and found this link. I followed as mentioned by Patrick Schaefer above and opened the Update Maven project Dialog. Click on my working project and selected the checkbox "Force Update of Snapshots/Releases" and 'Ok'. All the red cross vanished. I hope this helps anybody in a similar situation.
The question is old but I had this issue and I tried the following to no avail.
In my case I've got multi module mvn projects and one of the nested projects was showing a red X icon only in the Project Explorer (package explorer and problems were totally fine) and the whole project was fine as I could run classes without any issues. So seemed like a display issue.
The only thing that worked for me was to edit the pom.xml if the offending project module and make a breaking change (add 'xxx' to a tag name) which caused 1000s of errors and then undo.
You may clean the project by clicking,
In Eclipse, Right Click on Project -> clean
This helped out for me and saved a lot of time.
Thanks.
