Eclipse Gradle build "Could not find tools.jar"

Question

I have googled for whole day, and tried almost all the suggested solutions, none is working for my eclipse, totally have no idea what went wrong, it kept saying "Could not find tools.jar" when I try to build via Gradle.

What I did:

1) Add Java Home (point to my JDK) in System environment variables.

2) Add the path (which contain tools.jar) in the Path system environment variables.

3) Create a dependencies.gradle files in project folder, to instruct Gradle to look for tools.jar (compile files("${System.properties['java.home']}/../lib/tools.jar"))

4) Directly put the compile files("${System.properties['java.home']}/../lib/tools.jar") in the build.gradle dependencies there.

5) In project preferences there, go Java -> Build Path -> Classpath Variables, add in JAVA_HOME variable.

6) Point the project build path to JDK instead of JRE.

None of these is working! What else I could try?

PS: Eclipse version Mars 4.5.2, Gradle version 1.12

build.gradle content (this build script is generated automatically by eclipse):

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'

sourceCompatibility = 1.5
version = '1.0'
jar {
    manifest {
        attributes 'Implementation-Title': 'Gradle Quickstart',
                   'Implementation-Version': version
    }
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    compile group: 'commons-collections', name: 'commons-collections', version: '3.2'
    testCompile group: 'junit', name: 'junit', version: '4.+'
}

test {
    systemProperties 'property': 'value'
}

uploadArchives {
    repositories {
       flatDir {
           dirs 'repos'
       }
    }
}

The Java Home content:

Path environment variable:

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_67\lib

Error showing in eclipse console:

:compileJava FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':compileJava'.
> Could not find tools.jar

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 0.152 secs
[sts] Build failed
org.gradle.tooling.BuildException: Could not execute build using Gradle 
installation 'C:\buildtools\gradle-2.12'.
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Could not find tools.jar

(stacktrace too long, I shorten it.)

Update this showing exactly where you installed the JDK, and what JAVA_HOME is set to. Remove the dependency for "tools.jar". You don't need that. Show your entire build script and the build result. — David M. Karr
@DavidM.Karr thanks for the advice, I have updated the question, — Sam YC
@DavidM.Karr I have tried that, still the same error. Anyway, the tools.jar is in lib folder, not in bin folder. — Sam YC

Sam YC Sam YC · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-08T05:52:56

OK, I got my problem solved finally. It is very easy, I re-installed the JDK. Somehow the stupid Eclipse (or Gradle plugin, I still not sure which goes wrong) just can't recognize my old JDK path.

After I re-installed JDK (take this chance, I upgrade JDK 7 to 8 also), I don't even need Java_home environment variable, it works.

Eclipse Gradle build "Could not find tools.jar"

9 Answers