SonarQube 12 fails to start due to incorrect JRE

SonarQube for IDE Eclipse
1

Please provide

  • Operating system: Windows 11
  • IDE name and version: Eclipse Version: 2026-03 (4.39.0), Build id: 20260305-0817
  • SonarQube for Eclipse plugin version: 12.0.0.84623
  • Programming language you’re coding in: N/A
  • Is connected mode used: Yes
    • SonarQube Cloud, SonarQube Server, or SonarQube Community Build? (if one of the latter two, which version?): SonarQube Server v25.9.0.112764

And a thorough description of the problem / question:

I just upgraded the SonarQube plugin to v12 and now it fails to start with the following:

Starting SonarLint for Eclipse 12.0.0.84623
Using self-managed Java installation
Using JRE from C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-17
StdErr: Error: LinkageError occurred while loading main class org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.backend.cli.SonarLintServerCli
StdErr: 	java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/sonarsource/sonarlint/core/backend/cli/SonarLintServerCli has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime (class file version 65.0), this version of the Java Runtime only recognizes class file versions up to 61.0
Timed out waiting for SonarLint backend initialization after 1 minute
java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.timedGet(CompletableFuture.java:1960)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.get(CompletableFuture.java:2095)
	at org.sonarlint.eclipse.core.internal.backend.SonarLintBackendService$1.run(SonarLintBackendService.java:219)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:63)

I have tried changing JRE path in settings to v21, and restarted, but still get the same error. Nothing was written to the org.sonarlink.eclipse.ui.prefs settings file, and even when I added the jrePath settign manually, I still got the same error.

Settings file contains:
eclipse.preferences.version=1
hideSonarLintVersionHintDate=22.04.2026
rulesConfig={“java:S3776”:{“level”:“on”,“parameters”:{“Threshold”:“35”}}}
skipConfirmAnalyzeMultipleFiles=true
sonarLintVersion=12.0.0.84623
jrePath=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21.0.1

2

Hi,

Welcome to the community and thanks for this report!

Could we get a verbose log from IDE startup through to this error?

 
Thx,
Ann

4

sure, here you are:

Initializing SonarLint backend...
Starting SonarLint for Eclipse 12.0.0.84623
SonarLint Core Jar archive located at C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\plugins\org.sonarlint.eclipse.sloop.windows.x64_12.0.0.84623\sloop\lib\sonarlint-core-11.0.0.85168.jar
Sloop located in C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\plugins\org.sonarlint.eclipse.sloop.windows.x64_12.0.0.84623\sloop
Using self-managed Java installation
Using JRE from C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-17
StdErr: Error: LinkageError occurred while loading main class org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.backend.cli.SonarLintServerCli
StdErr: 	java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/sonarsource/sonarlint/core/backend/cli/SonarLintServerCli has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime (class file version 65.0), this version of the Java Runtime only recognizes class file versions up to 61.0
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-java-plugin-8.26.0.42915.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-php-plugin-3.55.0.15704.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-python-plugin-5.20.0.32295.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-html-plugin-3.25.0.7473.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-cfamily-plugin-6.79.0.97291.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-text-plugin-2.42.0.10784.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-java-symbolic-execution-plugin-8.16.3.1589.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-xml-plugin-2.16.0.7616.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-javascript-plugin-12.2.0.39785.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-java-plugin-8.26.0.42915.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-php-plugin-3.55.0.15704.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-python-plugin-5.20.0.32295.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-html-plugin-3.25.0.7473.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-cfamily-plugin-6.79.0.97291.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-text-plugin-2.42.0.10784.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-java-symbolic-execution-plugin-8.16.3.1589.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-xml-plugin-2.16.0.7616.jar
  - C:\Tools\Eclipse2024-09\configuration\org.eclipse.osgi\2081\0\.cp\plugins\sonar-javascript-plugin-12.2.0.39785.jar
Found JS/TS plugin: bundleentry://2081.fwk66609937/plugins/sonar-javascript-plugin-12.2.0.39785.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-javascript-plugin-12.2.0.39785.jar
Found HTML plugin: bundleentry://2081.fwk66609937/plugins/sonar-html-plugin-3.25.0.7473.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-html-plugin-3.25.0.7473.jar
Found XML plugin: bundleentry://2081.fwk66609937/plugins/sonar-xml-plugin-2.16.0.7616.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-xml-plugin-2.16.0.7616.jar
Found Secrets detection plugin: bundleentry://2081.fwk66609937/plugins/sonar-text-plugin-2.42.0.10784.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-text-plugin-2.42.0.10784.jar
Found CFamily plugin: bundleentry://2081.fwk66609937/plugins/sonar-cfamily-plugin-6.79.0.97291.jar
Plugin extracted to file:/C:/Tools/Eclipse2024-09/configuration/org.eclipse.osgi/2081/0/.cp/plugins/sonar-cfamily-plugin-6.79.0.97291.jar
Monitoring with Sentry is disabled
Timed out waiting for SonarLint backend initialization after 1 minute
java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.timedGet(CompletableFuture.java:1960)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.get(CompletableFuture.java:2095)
	at org.sonarlint.eclipse.core.internal.backend.SonarLintBackendService$1.run(SonarLintBackendService.java:219)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:63)
1 Like
5

Hi,

Thanks! This is flagged for the experts.

 
Ann

7

Hi,

the steps that you did were right, it should have helped. However the logs clearly state that it’s still overridden by user-provided 17:

Using self-managed Java installation
Using JRE from C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-17

There actually can be several org.sonarlink.eclipse.ui.prefs files and based on hierarchy they could override each other. Can you tell me which one did you change and check other places?

  1. Project scope — .settings/ in the project directory
  2. Instance scope (workspace) — /.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/
  3. Configuration scope (application/installation) — shared across workspaces, stored in the Eclipse installation’s configuration/.settings/ directory