groovy-language-server startup/early crash problem

[dstromberg]

I'm finding that groovy-language-server won't start in my current AstroNVim config.

Checking ~/.local/state/nvim/lsp.log I see a lot of:

[START][2025-09-02 12:40:02] LSP logging initiated
[ERROR][2025-09-02 12:40:02] ...p/_transport.lua:36 "rpc"   "/usr/bin/java" "stderr"    "Error: Unable to access jarfile groovy-language-server-all.jar\n"
[ERROR][2025-09-02 12:40:02] ...p/_transport.lua:36 "rpc"   "/usr/bin/java" "stderr"    "Error: Unable to access jarfile groovy-language-server-all.jar\n"

I googled that error message, and found: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/78049556/groovy-lsp-not-launching-correctly-in-neovim
However, the solutions there didn't appear to help me. TBH, I'm not sure how I would do that with AstroNVim+Mason, or if it's needed.

I'm attaching a full :checkhealth from neovim. As you can see, it doesn't have much to say about groovy. However, it does say that I'm using OpenJDK 11.0.28. But I tried OpenJDK openjdk-21-jdk as well as Oracle's JDK 24.02, and still had the same problem.

If I run the groovy-language-server-all.jar from the command line, it seems to start up - it doesn't say anything, but there's a notable absence of error messages. I'm assuming it's waiting to read something from stdin:

$ java -jar ~/.local/share/nvim/mason/packages/groovy-language-server/build/libs/groovy-language-server-all.jar
below cmd output started 2025 Tue Sep 02 01:13:19 PM PDT
^Cabove cmd output done    2025 Tue Sep 02 01:13:25 PM PDT

Also, if I extract the manifest from the groovy-language-server-all.jar, I see just:

$ unzip -p ~/.local/share/nvim/mason/packages/groovy-language-server/build/libs/groovy-language-server-all.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
below cmd output started 2025 Tue Sep 02 12:57:35 PM PDT
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Main-Class: net.prominic.groovyls.GroovyLanguageServer

above cmd output done    2025 Tue Sep 02 12:57:35 PM PDT

Based on a random example manifest I saw on the web, I suspect there should be more than that in the manifest? I was going for a groovyls version, but didn't get one.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[joshtynjala]

The manifest is correct.

The fact that you can run it from the command line without errors means that the .jar file is valid.

It sounds like your configuration in your editor may be specifying the wrong or incomplete path to groovy-language-server-all.jar. The Error: Unable to access jarfile error comes from the Java runtime. If you're using a relative path, perhaps you have assumed the wrong working directory. It might be worth trying an absolute path.