openjdk/jdk · critical

Error opening zip file or JAR manifest missing : %s\n

Error message

Error opening zip file or JAR manifest missing : %s\n

What it means

The -javaagent jar was opened/parsed and readAttributes() returned NULL: either the file is not readable/is not a zip/jar, or its META-INF/MANIFEST.MF is missing/unparseable. The launcher prints the jar path, frees memory, and returns JNI_ERR — the JVM will not start with this agent.

Source

Thrown at src/java.instrument/share/native/libinstrument/InvocationAdapter.c:179

    initerror = createNewJPLISAgent(vm, &agent, jarfile, JNI_FALSE);
    if ( initerror == JPLIS_INIT_ERROR_NONE ) {
        int             oldLen, newLen;
        jarAttribute*   attributes;
        char *          premainClass;
        char *          bootClassPath;

        /*
         * Agent_OnLoad is specified to provide the agent options
         * argument tail in modified UTF8. However for 1.5.0 this is
         * actually in the platform encoding - see 5049313.
         *
         * Open zip/jar file and parse archive. If can't be opened or
         * not a zip file return error. Also if Premain-Class attribute
         * isn't present we return an error.
         */
        attributes = readAttributes(jarfile);
        if (attributes == NULL) {
            fprintf(stderr, "Error opening zip file or JAR manifest missing : %s\n", jarfile);
            free(jarfile);
            if (options != NULL) free(options);
            return JNI_ERR;
        }

        premainClass = getAttribute(attributes, "Premain-Class");
        if (premainClass == NULL) {
            fprintf(stderr, "Failed to find Premain-Class manifest attribute in %s\n",
                jarfile);
            free(jarfile);
            if (options != NULL) free(options);
            freeAttributes(attributes);
            return JNI_ERR;
        }

        /*
         * The value of the Premain-Class attribute becomes the agent
         * class name. The manifest is in UTF8 so need to convert to

View on GitHub (pinned to 88dfb74bbe)

Solutions

1. Verify the file: 'unzip -l agent.jar' must list META-INF/MANIFEST.MF; if not, rebuild with the manifest included
2. Check the path in the -javaagent option is absolute or resolvable from the JVM's cwd, and correctly quoted
3. Rebuild the agent jar so it does not pass through shade/bootJar/spring-boot repackage — attach the original thin jar
4. Re-download/copy the agent jar if it may be truncated, and confirm it opens with 'jar tf'

Example fix

# before
java -javaagent:build/libs/myagent-boot.jar -jar app.jar  # boot repack broke manifest

# after
java -javaagent:build/libs/myagent.jar -jar app.jar       # plain jar with META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

// CI/build check before shipping a -javaagent invocation
try (ZipFile z = new ZipFile("agent.jar")) {
    if (z.getEntry("META-INF/MANIFEST.MF") == null)
        throw new IllegalStateException("agent jar has no manifest");
} catch (IOException e) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("agent jar unreadable", e);
}

When it happens

Trigger: java -javaagent:agent.jar where agent.jar does not exist, is a plain (non-zip) file, is corrupt/truncated, or was built without a manifest (jar cfe omitted / Maven Shade misconfiguration dropping META-INF/MANIFEST.MF). Also paths with wrong case or Windows backslashes mishandled in the option string.

Common situations: CI builds stripping manifests via repackaging; agents downloaded incompletely; quoting problems in shell/Gradle arguments; using a class-directory instead of a jar; Spring Boot executable-jar repackaging applied to the agent jar destroying its layout.

Related errors

• Failed to find Premain-Class manifest attribute in %s\n
• -javaagent: Premain-Class value is too big\n
• -javaagent: memory allocation failure.\n
• -javaagent: memory allocation failed\n
• java.lang.instrument/-javaagent: cannot create native agent.

AI-assisted analysis of openjdk/jdk@88dfb74bbe (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/86b60de40a8de6ed. Report an issue: GitHub.