IntelliJ IDEA always hangs on startup
Answered
I am running IntelliJ IDEA ultimate on Linux. The version is 2023.3. It used to be working fine until I tried to open a really old project. This project hadn't been opened in many years, but it had previously been used in a much older version of IntelliJ. Anyway, the project open failed. There were many errors in the error log and InteliJ became unresponsive and had to be killed. Now, when I try to start IntelliJ, it wants to reopen the last projects, but it hangs. I can see the initial screen of one project, but I can't click on any buttons or interact in any way. I can only kill IntelliJ with the Linux kill command.
Is there a way to force IntelliJ to not open any projects on startup?
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The setting for this is `File | Settings | Appearance & Behavior | System Settings | Reopen projects on starup` option. You can try to find the configuration file for this and modify it manually while the IDE is not running.
Thank you, Ethan. My guess is this would have probably worked. It turns out I didn't need to try it after all. I let IDEA sit in its “hung” state overnight and for whatever reason, it started to work again when I looked at it again in the morning. I was even able to restart it without any issues. Upon startup, only the “good” project was loaded. IDEA apparently did not attempt to load the problematic project.
However, the original problem still remains. If I try to open this old project again, IDEA will hang. I just see the “Open Project” window with a cancel button. It never completes and IDEA must be killed. Am I correct in assuming that newer IntelliJ IDEA versions cannot open really old projects without completely hanging?
I ended up just deleting the .ipr, .iws, and .iml files. That was good enough so that I can at least open the project now. I'll recreate the project as needed.