Unrecognized option: --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code=ALL-UNNAMED

See comments in https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-258574

I  tried solution proposed and it not helps. I see same problem when trying to run class or build project (menu Build - Build Project). When I trying to run all tests from IDE I see same error.

To clarify I can compile project with maven tools. While my tests fails, I can build jar with maven and skip tests option. I see jar file in target catalog.

Is it obligatory to use Java 8 for the project? If no, please use Java 11

If yes, please share a project sample where it could be reproduced, most probably "add-opens" is added somewhere in pom.xml of Maven module (or its parent) via argLine

Yes Java 8 is obligatory and it worked same way on older workstation with 

IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1.1 (Ultimate Edition)
Build #IU-201.7223.91, built on April 30, 2020
Licensed to Research For Good / Pavlo Morozov
You have a perpetual fallback license for this version
Subscription is active until August 16, 2021
Runtime version: 11.0.6+8-b765.40 amd64
VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o
Linux 4.15.0-20-generic
GC: ParNew, ConcurrentMarkSweep
Memory: 1899M
Cores: 3
Non-Bundled Plugins: com.alayouni.ansiHighlight, Lombook Plugin, org.jetbrains.plugins.spotbugs, com.intellij.ideolog, com.intellij.plugins.watcher, Pythonid, com.cybrosis.catdea, org.jetbrains.plugins.vue
Current Desktop: X-Cinnamon

I cannot share project as this is prohibited by company policy, as well as it contains private maven repositories, so just sharing would not help.

I tried your suggestion about maven though. I not found any place in effective pom with:

add-opens

described in error. I also tried to search files content in scope for it and found some, but they not contain the line shown in error.

I installed older IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1.1 (Ultimate Edition)
Build #IU-201.7223.91, built on April 30, 2020
Licensed to Research For Good / Pavlo Morozov
You have a perpetual fallback license for this version
Subscription is active until August 16, 2021
Runtime version: 11.0.6+8-b765.40 amd64
VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o
Linux 4.15.0-20-generic
GC: ParNew, ConcurrentMarkSweep
Memory: 1899M
Cores: 3
Non-Bundled Plugins: com.alayouni.ansiHighlight, Lombook Plugin, org.jetbrains.plugins.spotbugs, com.intellij.ideolog, com.intellij.plugins.watcher, Pythonid, com.cybrosis.catdea, org.jetbrains.plugins.vue
Current Desktop: X-Cinnamon

And it works fine, so just one component in my setup changed - IDEA version. Does it mean IDEA adds this line?

May you share idea.log and build.log after reproducing this? You can use https://uploads.jetbrains.com to share the files privately. 

Same issue, How can I solve it?  

Abnormal build process termination:
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_192.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java -Xmx700m -Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.endorsed.dirs=\"\" -Dpreload.project.path=/Users/qyang2/code/winner/omni-member-service "-Dpreload.config.path=/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/options" -Dcompile.parallel=false -Drebuild.on.dependency.change=true -Djdt.compiler.useSingleThread=true -Daether.connector.resumeDownloads=false -Dio.netty.initialSeedUniquifier=7248983025538226031 -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=CN -Didea.paths.selector=IntelliJIdea2021.2 "-Didea.home.path=/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents" "-Didea.config.path=/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2" "-Didea.plugins.path=/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins" -Djps.log.dir=/Users/qyang2/Library/Logs/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/build-log "-Djps.fallback.jdk.home=/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home" -Djps.fallback.jdk.version=11.0.11 -Dio.netty.noUnsafe=true -Djava.io.tmpdir=/Users/qyang2/Library/Caches/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/compile-server/omni-member-service_73d471c5/_temp_ -Djps.backward.ref.index.builder=true -Djps.track.ap.dependencies=false --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.comp=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.file=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.main=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.model=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.parser=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.processing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.tree=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.jvm=ALL-UNNAMED -Dtmh.instrument.annotations=true -Dtmh.generate.line.numbers=true -Dkotlin.incremental.compilation=true -Dkotlin.incremental.compilation.js=true -Dkotlin.daemon.enabled -Dkotlin.daemon.client.alive.path=\"/var/folders/pb/tvp5dfm90lq1sf6kkblk0j5r0000gp/T/kotlin-idea-18215294495491996157-is-running\" -Dcompile.parallel.max.threads=4 -Dcompile.parallel=true -Dscala.compile.server.socket.read.timeout.seconds=60 -Dscala.compiler.indices.rebuild=true -classpath "/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/jps-launcher.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_192.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar" org.jetbrains.jps.cmdline.Launcher "/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/protobuf-java-3.15.8.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/3rd-party.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/slf4j.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/jna.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/maven-resolver-connector-basic-1.3.3.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/jps-javac-extension-1.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/jps-builders.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/jps-builders-6.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/javac2.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/maven-resolver-transport-file-1.3.3.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/aether-dependency-resolver.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/jna-platform.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/kotlin-stdlib-jdk8.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/annotations.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/forms_rt.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/jps-model.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/util.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/platform-api.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/lib/idea_rt.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/java/lib/maven-resolver-transport-http-1.3.3.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/JavaEE/lib/jasper-v2-rt.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Kotlin/lib/kotlin-reflect.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Kotlin/lib/kotlin-plugin.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/eclipse/lib/eclipse-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/eclipse/lib/eclipse-common.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/IntelliLang/lib/java-langInjection-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Groovy/lib/groovy-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Groovy/lib/groovy-constants-rt.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/maven/lib/maven-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/gradle-java/lib/gradle-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/devkit/lib/devkit-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/javaFX/lib/javaFX-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/javaFX/lib/javaFX-common.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/JavaEE/lib/javaee-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/JPA/lib/jps/javaee-jpa-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Grails/lib/groovy-grails-jps.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Grails/lib/groovy-grails-compilerPatch.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Kotlin/lib/jps/kotlin-jps-plugin.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Kotlin/lib/kotlin-jps-common.jar:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA.app/Contents/plugins/Kotlin/lib/kotlin-common.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/scala-library.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/compiler-shared.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/jps/nailgun.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/jps/compiler-jps.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/jps/sbt-interface.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/jps/incremental-compiler.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/jps/scala-parallel-collections.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/spray-json_2.13-1.3.5.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/scala-compiler-indices-protocol_2.12-0.1.1.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/scala-library.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/lib/scala-play-2-jps-plugin.jar:/Users/qyang2/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/plugins/Scala/launcher/sbt-launch.jar" org.jetbrains.jps.cmdline.BuildMain 127.0.0.1 50216 61279ca7-b080-48e2-b1ce-65ad3f816e16 /Users/qyang2/Library/Caches/JetBrains/IntelliJIdea2021.2/compile-server
Unrecognized option: --add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code=ALL-UNNAMED
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

I have also encountered this problem after upgrading to 2021.2. My project is also obligated to use Java 8.

Are there any changes in the new version that might have broken compatibility with Java 8?

@... You can delete the .idea folder and reimport your project again.  I solved this issue in this way.

Yang7 Dev I could try. You're on Java 8 + 2021.2?

@...  yes

@... jdk1.8.0_192.jdk

Yang7 Dev Nice. Thanks for the tip.

Here the solution for whoever would need it https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68554693/java-intellij-idea-problem-unrecognized-option-add-opens-jdk-compiler-com-su . Don't forget to vote for question though!

@... It works! Thank you

Thanks @... this helped. So somehow in project settings language level was changed to use 16th java... what a Dinosaur I'm using 8th :) Good luck bros. 

Thank you @... - your referred solution worked!