Eclipse refresh SVN status cache problem

I quite like my Eclipse. Most importantly for the PHP debugging. It ain't quick, but it does something you can't do any other way. I have my server setup with the Zend debugger and life is much easier.

So anyway, I decided to upgrade my Eclipse Indigo to Juno.

Why they don't make life easier is beyond me. 'Plugin hell' is one of downsides of Eclipse, especially with the PHP development tools (PDT) & Subversion. It's an unholy mess at the best of times. Far too fragmented and unprofessional. There was a time, I think, when you could get an Eclipse package with PDT included. Why that changed I have no idea.

But I digress.

I've had fun before trying to upgrade and retrieve settings. Quite honestly I'm not even sure where Eclipse hides all its settings (SVN repos for example).

Anyway, I did a clean install, added in PDT from here http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project.php?id=tools.pdt and then went to get Subclipse, my preferred SVN plugin, from here http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/subclipse#.UMr2btHZfRY.

I like Subclipse for two reasons

1. It is developed by the subversion developers
2. It has SSH access

Anyhow, I added the locations and installed and off we went. Except I was getting multiple versions of "refresh SVN status cache" to the point that it overwhelmed my machine and caused a huge crash.

On checking the SVN settings, I could see that it said that it was using the SVNkit interface and the JavaHL (JNI) one which said that it was unavailable. I knew that the previous version was using JavaHL.


After extensive reading I finally came to the conclusion that the probable cause was that I had installed the latest Subclipse 1.8 which was not working well with the installed versions of subversion on my machine which are at 1.6

Uninstalling an Eclipse plugin is not the most straight forward of methods either.

Help, About, Installation Details, select the installed software and then Uninstall. Obvious, right ??? Why the hell isn't the Install/Uninstall in the same place ? Mad.

Anyway, I ripped all the mess out, installed the older version and I now seem to have a happily working system.