JavaFX and Maven in Intellij: JAVA_HOME set but "Unrecognized option --module-path" error persisting

Harvey Ellis picture Harvey Ellis · Apr 25, 2019 · Viewed 8.8k times · Source

Using Maven and JavaFX in Intellij (2019.1). I have been following this tutorial.

I have a curious error that keeps occurring - every time I keep running the javafx:run plugin, it fails, giving this error:

Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.
Unrecognized option: --module-path

However, when I put the executable in the javafx-maven-plugin (<executable>"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-12.0.1\bin\java.exe"</executable>) it works. I am on Windows and have set the JAVA_HOME system environment variable to C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-12.0.1 which is where the JDK is installed.

This is a curious issue that is not critical, but would be nice to know the answer to.

EDIT:

pom.xml:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>uk.co.harveyellis</groupId>
    <artifactId>HelloFX</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <maven.compiler.source>12</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>12</maven.compiler.target>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.openjfx</groupId>
            <artifactId>javafx-controls</artifactId>
            <version>11.0.2</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.openjfx</groupId>
            <artifactId>javafx-fxml</artifactId>
            <version>11.0.2</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.8.0</version>
                <configuration>
                    <release>12</release>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.openjfx</groupId>
                <artifactId>javafx-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>0.0.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <mainClass>uk.co.harveyellis.App</mainClass>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Other pictures:

Project language level Project outline

Environment Path

C:\Rtools\bin
C:\Program Files\Microsoft MPI\Bin\
C:\Python37\Scripts\
C:\Python37\
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-12.0.1\bin
C:\Program Files\apache-maven-3.6.1\bin
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath
C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin
C:\Program Files (x86)\Brackets\command
C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
C:\Program Files\dotnet\
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\
C:\Program Files\PuTTY\
C:\Program Files\nodejs\
C:\Program Files\Gradle\gradle-5.4\bin

Note also that C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 2019.1.1\bin is in user path.

Answer

J. Willus picture J. Willus · Sep 4, 2019

I've been experiencing similar pains with setting up a JavaFX project with Maven. That command requires a newer version of the JDK and the issue at hand is that Maven will actually ignore your system's JAVA_HOME and JDK_HOME variables, as well as your IDE settings.

You can check which version of Java that Maven is using by simply executing this command in your console:

$ java -version

In the case of Windows, you just move the entry pointing to the newer Java version above the older one, like so:

enter image description here