Press the + button to create a new Configuration which cannot be loaded

Answered

When I started up my development machine (mid-2011 iMac, Yosemite 10.10.3) I noticed that my debug configuration had disappeared: when I had last used this machine three days ago there was no problem with it.
Opening the Edit Configurations dialog, I saw that the debug configuration was replaced by a question mark and the word Unknown.
Clicking the triangle before it showed the former configuration as the word Debug with a shortcut icon adorned with little red 'error' cross (see screen capture). In the right panel it said:

Broken configuration due to unavailable plugin or invalid configuration data.

When I clicked on the word Unknown, this was replaced by the deeply puzzling

Press the + button to create a new Configuration which cannot be loaded due to some reasons based on default settings

which made me laugh, because it's sheer absurdity reminded me of Monty Python's Flying Circus - or the nebulous "General Failure" errors that Windows 95 and 98 produced.

Because I had seen one other application generate an error during start-up, I closed and re-opened Intellij, and the debug configuration was restored.
I'm posting this mostly because the error message really made me wonder what caused this situation: I'm especially curious to what Intellij considers some reasons - and I'd also love to know why on earth it would recommend to create a Configuration which cannot be loaded ?

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6 comments

It appears that some plug-in providing this run/debug configuration type was disabled or uninstalled. idea.log would have more details about disabled plugins (https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/entries/23352446).

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Hi Serge,

serge wrote:

It appears that some plug-in providing this run/debug configuration type was disabled or uninstalled. idea.log would have more details about disabled plugins (https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/entries/23352446).

it seems not, because everything was back to normal after I restarted IntelliJ. It must have been some glitch during startup, possibly caused by another application or process (I noticed the System Preferences reporting some error while IntelliJ loaded, but I forgot what it was).

This is a summary of the relevant section in the idea.log:

2015-09-22 10:56:52,980 [1839885]  ERROR - x.dummy.DummyCachingFileSystem - project dd28f285 already registered: [Project '/Users/luthien/git/api2' api2, Project '/Users/luthien/git/api2' api2]
java.lang.Throwable
     at com.intellij.openapi.diagnostic.Logger.error(Logger.java:115)
     (...)
2015-09-22 10:56:52,995 [1839900]  ERROR - x.dummy.DummyCachingFileSystem - IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.4  Build #IU-141.1532.4
2015-09-22 10:56:52,995 [1839900]  ERROR - x.dummy.DummyCachingFileSystem - JDK: 1.6.0_65
2015-09-22 10:56:52,995 [1839900]  ERROR - x.dummy.DummyCachingFileSystem - VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
2015-09-22 10:56:52,995 [1839900]  ERROR - x.dummy.DummyCachingFileSystem - Vendor: Apple Inc.
2015-09-22 10:56:52,995 [1839900]  ERROR - x.dummy.DummyCachingFileSystem - OS: Mac OS X
2015-09-22 10:57:25,745 [1872650]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - [com.intellij.lang.ant.config.execution.AntRunConfigurationType@27427af2, com.intellij.execution.applet.AppletConfigurationType@7d95ba00,
+++ etcetera +++
com.intellij.javascript.trace.execution.TraceNodeConfigurationType@6e939fb9] loader: PluginClassLoader[XPathView, 4], class org.intellij.lang.xpath.xslt.run.XsltRunConfigType
     at com.intellij.openapi.extensions.impl.ExtensionComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(ExtensionComponentAdapter.java:96)
     (...)
Caused by: java.lang.AssertionError: [com.intellij.lang.ant.config.execution.AntRunConfigurationType@27427af2, com.intellij.execution.applet.AppletConfigurationType@7d95ba00,
+++ etcetera +++
com.intellij.javascript.trace.execution.TraceNodeConfigurationType@6e939fb9] loader: PluginClassLoader[XPathView, 4], class org.intellij.lang.xpath.xslt.run.XsltRunConfigType
     at com.intellij.execution.configurations.ConfigurationTypeUtil.findConfigurationType(ConfigurationTypeUtil.java:40)
     (...)
2015-09-22 10:57:25,747 [1872652]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.4  Build #IU-141.1532.4
2015-09-22 10:57:25,747 [1872652]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - JDK: 1.6.0_65
2015-09-22 10:57:25,747 [1872652]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
2015-09-22 10:57:25,747 [1872652]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - Vendor: Apple Inc.
2015-09-22 10:57:25,747 [1872652]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - OS: Mac OS X
2015-09-22 10:57:25,760 [1872665]  ERROR - nsions.impl.ExtensionPointImpl - [com.intellij.lang.ant.config.execution.AntRunConfigurationType@27427af2, com.intellij.execution.applet.AppletConfigurationType@7d95ba00,
+++ etcetera +++
com.intellij.javascript.trace.execution.TraceBrowserConfigurationType@3a0ff8be, com.intellij.javascript.trace.execution.TraceNodeConfigurationType@6e939fb9] loader: PluginClassLoader[Tomcat, 1.0], class org.jetbrains.idea.tomcat.server.TomcatConfiguration
     (...)
Caused by: java.lang.AssertionError: [com.intellij.lang.ant.config.execution.AntRunConfigurationType@27427af2, com.intellij.execution.applet.AppletConfigurationType@7d95ba00,
+++ etcetera +++
.intellij.javascript.trace.execution.TraceNodeConfigurationType@6e939fb9] loader: PluginClassLoader[Tomcat, 1.0], class org.jetbrains.idea.tomcat.server.TomcatConfiguration
     at com.intellij.execution.configurations.ConfigurationTypeUtil.findConfigurationType(ConfigurationTypeUtil.java:40)
     (...)
== repeat all that a couple of times ==

 


The configuration editor reported "broken configuration due to unavailable plugin or invalid configuration data" so I assumed that indeed some plug-in had failed to load.


Since I rebooted Intellij there hasn't been a problem again ... I posted it here because the error message was so puzzling:


Press the + button to create a new Configuration which cannot be loaded due to some reasons based on default settings



- actually, there are a couple of things about this message.
Being a developer as well, I've also dealt with handling exceptions and trying to report something useful; maybe that's why I'm so fazed by the juxtaposition of "Press the + button to create a new Configuration" and "which cannot be loaded".


What is that message trying to communicate?



At one hand it encourages me to create a new Configuration, but it also marks this Configuration a priori as unloadable - which cannot be loaded.
It's as if I'm driving into a gas station to see a billboard with the text "Try our new supereconomy fuel that your engine won't be able to run on!"  - or, in the supermarket:  "Nono Bread - guaranteed inedible!" - or even "Surprise jeans! Guaranteed to not fit you, nor anyone else!"



The message then continues with "(...) due to some reasons", which is the part that reminded me of those Windows 95 / 98 General Failure errors: "Oops, something went wrong here. But we won't tell you what it is."

I can understand that it's no good to dump the stack traces in there, but "due to some reasons" just sounds - I don't know, absurd comes closest.



The president didn't travel to New York due to some reasons.
I can't help you due to some reasons.
This car won't run due to some reasons.



Again, what is this trying to get across? That there was more than just one reason?

Does it help any user understand what the problem is?

I think I would rather just refer to the idea.log, or else to try and be a bit more specific than this :)



Finally, the tailing "(...) based on default settings" - it's understandable that this is part of the regular prompt



Press the + button to create a new Tomcat Server Run Configuration based on default settings



but in the context of this error situation it makes little sense.
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Please attach the complete log file, or you can submit a bug at http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/IDEA so that we can investigate this problem in more detail and improve the error handling and the messages displayed because of this error.

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Wanted to comment that the exact same thing happened to me just now with version 2022.3. I had to re-open intelliJ a second time for the runConfigurations to correctly sort work and sort into Python as opposed to unknown.

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Twosiderscontact, could you please share your IDE log with us so I can see the exact error message? You can do it using the JetBrains Uploads service and post the ID you receive here. 

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