Internal NPE when launching JavaFX Application

Question

So basically I began a dummy JavaFX project just to achieve a minimalistic example for my actual problem. But now I am not even able to run that minimalistic project anymore and do not receive enough error information to actually google it myself out. So right now, when I run the code, I receive the given error stack, which does not lead me anywhere.

I am using IntelliJ. JavaFX libraries are set correctly and VM Options set to: --module-path "C:\Program Files\Java\javafx-sdk-11.0.2\lib" --add-modules javafx.controls,javafx.fxml

On top, when I run the code, those errors pop up in console, but the application seems to still be running, because I need to press the Red Stop Button of IntelliJ to actually stop it.

Has anyone some guess, what goes wrong here? I am not experienced enough to follow those errors, since they do not point into my code, but rather into some Deep Java code.

The Exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)
    at java.base/sun.launcher.LauncherHelper$FXHelper.main(LauncherHelper.java:1051)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:559)
    at javafx.graphics/com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.launchApplicationWithArgs(LauncherImpl.java:464)
    at javafx.graphics/com.sun.javafx.application.LauncherImpl.launchApplication(LauncherImpl.java:363)
    ... 5 more

Main.java:

package sample;

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.fxml.FXMLLoader;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.layout.AnchorPane;
import javafx.scene.layout.BorderPane;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
import java.io.IOException;

public class Main extends Application {

    private Stage rootStage;
    public BorderPane mainWindow;
    public AnchorPane left;
    public AnchorPane bottom;

    @Override
    public void start(Stage primaryStage) throws Exception {

        this.rootStage = primaryStage;
        loadMainWindow();

    }

    public void loadMainWindow() throws IOException {

            FXMLLoader loaderMainWindow = new FXMLLoader(Main.class.getResource("MainWindow.fxml"));
            mainWindow = loaderMainWindow.load();

            FXMLLoader loaderLeft = new FXMLLoader(Main.class.getResource("Left.fxml"));
            left = loaderLeft.load();


            mainWindow.setLeft(left);
            //mainWindow.setBottom(bottom);


        Scene scene = new Scene(mainWindow);
        rootStage.setScene(scene);
        rootStage.show();

    }

    public void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }
}

MainWindow.fxml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<?import javafx.scene.layout.BorderPane?>


<BorderPane prefHeight="400.0" prefWidth="600.0" xmlns="http://javafx.com/javafx/10.0.1" xmlns:fx="http://javafx.com/fxml/1" fx:controller="sample.MainWindowController" />

MainWindowController:

package sample;

import javafx.fxml.Initializable;

import java.net.URL;
import java.util.ResourceBundle;



public class MainWindowController implements Initializable {

    private Main main;

    @Override
    public void initialize(URL url, ResourceBundle resourceBundle) {

    }

    public void setMain(Main main) {
        this.main = main;
    }
}

Left.fxml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<?import javafx.scene.control.Button?>
<?import javafx.scene.layout.AnchorPane?>

<AnchorPane prefHeight="400.0" prefWidth="100.0" xmlns="http://javafx.com/javafx/10.0.1" xmlns:fx="http://javafx.com/fxml/1" fx:controller="sample.LeftController">
   <children>
      <Button fx:id="button" layoutX="237.0" layoutY="169.0" mnemonicParsing="false" onAction="#buttonClick" text="Button" AnchorPane.leftAnchor="0.0" AnchorPane.rightAnchor="0.0" />
   </children>
</AnchorPane>

LeftController.java:

package sample;

import javafx.fxml.FXML;
import javafx.fxml.Initializable;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.ResourceBundle;

public class LeftController implements Initializable {

    @FXML
    private Button button;

    @Override
    public void initialize(URL url, ResourceBundle resourceBundle) {

    }

    public void buttonClick(javafx.event.ActionEvent actionEvent) {
        System.out.println("Some Stuff");
    }
}

Answer 1

Solution

The error you're getting is caused by your main(String[]) method not being static. If you make it static then the error will go away.

---

Some Explanation

JavaFX offers the ability to launch applications without providing a main method, so long as the main class is a subclass of Application. However, developers can still include a main method which means this special launch functionality has to handle that situation gracefully. In other words, an explicit main method present in the Application subclass must act like the entry point of the application from the developer's point of view. Nonetheless, behind the scenes some deep internal class has become the "real" main class.

To do this, the main method is located—if present at all—via Class#getMethod(String,Class...) which, while only returning public methods, doesn't distinguish between static and non-static methods. If found, Method#invoke(Object,Object...) is used to invoke the main method reflectively. The first argument of invoke is the instance that the method should be invoked on; in the case of static methods the value is null. Unfortunately, the code assumes the method it found is static which causes a NullPointerException to be thrown—you can't call an instance method on a null "instance".

---

Update: This issue has been submitted on GitHub (#570) and subsequently JBS (JDK-8230119). The current idea is to emit a warning rather than throw the NullPointerException. However, the functionality that allows launching without a main method may be deprecated in a future release, which will affect how this issue is addressed.