Changed Java Runtime and broke Pycharm

Question

Prefacing by saying I know very little about this.

I tried changing the java version of pycharm to a 1.17 ? version I downloaded, and Pycharm failed to start. I tried reinstalling pycharm, and get the following error on launch. Any help to fix my boneheaded mistake is greatly appreciated :)

Internal error. Please refer to https://jb.gg/ide/critical-startup-errors

com.intellij.ide.plugins.StartupAbortedException: UI initialization failed at com.intellij.idea.StartupUtil.lambda$start$15(StartupUtil.java:268) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.uniExceptionally(CompletableFuture.java:990) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$UniExceptionally.tryFire(CompletableFuture.java:974) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.postComplete(CompletableFuture.java:510) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.postFire(CompletableFuture.java:614) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$UniRun.tryFire(CompletableFuture.java:795) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$Completion.run(CompletableFuture.java:482) at java.desktop/java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:318) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:771) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:722) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:716) at java.base/java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(AccessController.java:399) at java.base/java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:86) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:741) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:203) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:124) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:113) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:109) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101) at java.desktop/java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:90) Caused by: java.util.concurrent.CompletionException: java.lang.IllegalAccessError: class com.intellij.idea.StartupUtil (in unnamed module @0x73f792cf) cannot access class sun.awt.AWTAutoShutdown (in module java.desktop) because module java.desktop does not export sun.awt to unnamed module @0x73f792cf at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.encodeThrowable(CompletableFuture.java:315) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture.completeThrowable(CompletableFuture.java:320) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$UniRun.tryFire(CompletableFuture.java:791) ... 14 more Caused by: java.lang.IllegalAccessError: class com.intellij.idea.StartupUtil (in unnamed module @0x73f792cf) cannot access class sun.awt.AWTAutoShutdown (in module java.desktop) because module java.desktop does not export sun.awt to unnamed module @0x73f792cf at com.intellij.idea.StartupUtil.lambda$scheduleInitUi$22(StartupUtil.java:503) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$UniRun.tryFire(CompletableFuture.java:787) ... 14 more

---

Your JRE: 17.0.1+12-LTS-39 amd64 (Oracle Corporation) C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-17.0.1

Answer 1

As per the JetBrains support page, the jdk version is stored here (on MacOS):

$HOME/Library/Application\ Support/JetBrains/PyCharm2024.1/pycharm.jdk

So instead of removing the entire directory, you could just remove the .jdk file, and then it will revert to the default jdk version

Answer 2

Seems you are running this on windows. I found the solution on macOS machines. Essentially you have to go to yout Jetbrains folder and remove the respective pycharm chat:

cd ~/library
cd Application\ Support/
cd Jetbrains
ls
rm -r PyCharmCE2021.3

Hope you can try similar method on windows!