JetBrains/intellij-community · error · SourceSearchException

Connection problem. See log for more details.

Error message

Connection problem. See log for more details.

What it means

MavenCentralSourceSearcher queries Maven Central over HTTP to locate a '-sources.jar' for classes missing from attached libraries (the 'Choose Sources' / jar-finder flow). Any IOException during the request — DNS failure, timeout, proxy refusal, HTTP error surfacing as IOException — is logged (LOG.warn) and rethrown as SourceSearchException with this generic connection message. indicator.checkCanceled() runs first so a user cancel does not masquerade as a network failure.

Source

Thrown at java/java-impl/src/com/intellij/jarFinder/MavenCentralSourceSearcher.java:56

      }
      if (artifactList.size() == 1) {
        return "https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/" +
               artifactList.get(0).getValue().replace('.', '/') + '/' +
               artifactId + '/' +
               version + '/' +
               artifactId + '-' +
               version + "-sources.jar";
      }
      else {
        // TODO handle
        return null;
      }
    }
    catch (IOException e) {
      indicator.checkCanceled(); // Cause of IOException may be canceling of operation.

      LOG.warn(e);
      throw new SourceSearchException("Connection problem. See log for more details.");
    }
  }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to be881553f2)

Solutions

1. Check the IDE log (idea.log) — the original IOException with URL/status is logged just before this exception is thrown.
2. Configure/verify proxy: Settings | Appearance & Behavior | System Settings | HTTP Proxy, then 'Check connection' against https://repo.maven.apache.org.
3. Retry once connectivity is restored; transient Central hiccups are common.

// Probe connectivity before triggering source search
java.net.HttpURLConnection c = (java.net.HttpURLConnection) new java.net.URL("https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/").openConnection();
c.setConnectTimeout(3000);
c.setRequestMethod("HEAD");
if (c.getResponseCode() / 100 != 2) { notifyUser("Maven Central unreachable — check proxy/network"); return; }

try { searcher.findSourceJar(fqName); } catch (SourceSearchException e) { /* message is generic; consult idea.log for the IOException root cause */ scheduleRetryOrPromptManualAttach(); }

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the source-search API (e.g. via JarFinder/'Attach Sources' downstream calls to MavenCentralSourceSearcher.findSourceJar) while offline, behind a blocking proxy, with DNS issues, or when repo.maven.apache.org is unreachable.

Common situations: Corporate networks with mandatory proxies not configured in IDE HTTP settings; VPN dropping; firewall blocking repo.maven.apache.org; transient Maven Central outages.

Related errors

• Connection problem. See log for more details.
• Malformed exclusion, 'groupId:artifactName' format is expect
• No junit.jar in {0}
• ATTACH_VM_FAILED
• No external project config file is defined

AI-assisted analysis of JetBrains/intellij-community@be881553f2 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7ea3a60534bac6ed. Report an issue: GitHub.