Had a weird issue with Eclipse not starting, it would bomb out with the following exception:

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JVM terminated. Exit code=1
/usr/bin/java
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-XX:MaxPermSize=768m
-Xms256m
-Xmx1024m
-jar /home/jon/eclipsercp/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.1.R33x_v20080118.jar
-os linux
-ws gtk
-arch x86_64
-showsplash
-launcher /home/jon/eclipsercp/eclipse
-name Eclipse
--launcher.library /home/jon/eclipsercp/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_64_1.0.3.R33x_v20080118/eclipse_1023.so
-startup /home/jon/eclipsercp/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.1.R33x_v20080118.jar
-exitdata 257000e
-clean
-vm /usr/bin/java
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-XX:MaxPermSize=768m
-Xms256m
-Xmx1024m
-jar /home/jon/eclipsercp/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.1.R33x_v20080118.jar

Under the workspace folder there are a number of files and directories:

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.plugins
.mylyn
version.ini
.lock
.log

Normally deleting the .lock file seems to cure this problem, but it didn’t in this case.

In order to cure it I had to go into

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.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources

and remove the .snap file. This sorted out the issue and allowed me to start Eclipse again. Unfortunately I lost all the projects within the workspace and had to reimport them (grrr).

You can alternatively try running the Eclipse Workspace Rebuilder (http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/platform-core/downloads.php). Unzip the rebuilder zip file and run it using:

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eclipse -application org.eclipse.core.tools.restorer.application

It doesn’t restore everything, only the basic state of your projects.