What causes "while accept method:[%s]" in pxb1988/dex2jar?

Walk the cause chain to find the specific inner error (code, annotation, etc.)

pxb1988/dex2jar · error · DexException

while accept method:[ ]

Error message

while accept method:[%s]

What it means

Outermost wrapper in DexFileReader.acceptMethod: any exception raised while visiting a method (annotations, code, or the visitor callbacks themselves) is wrapped in DexException("while accept method:[%s]") naming the method. It is the last resort, so the cause chain already contains more specific wrappers like 'while accept code'.

Solutions

Walk the cause chain to find the specific inner error (code, annotation, etc.)
Catch DexException per-method in your conversion loop to skip broken methods
Validate/rebuild the dex with the official toolchain
Update d2j to the latest version for broader opcode/feature support

Example fix

// before
reader.accept(dmv);
// after
try {
    reader.accept(dmv);
} catch (DexException e) {
    Throwable root = e; while (root.getCause() != null) root = root.getCause();
    System.err.println("skipped method: " + e.getMessage() + " / " + root);
}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try {
    reader.accept(dmv);
} catch (DexException e) {
    Throwable root = e;
    while (root.getCause() != null) root = root.getCause();
    logger.warn("method skipped: " + e.getMessage(), root);
}

Prevention

Always log the full cause chain, not just the top message
Process methods individually so one failure doesn't abort the batch
Validate dex files with dexlint/dexdump before conversion

When it happens

Trigger: accept(DexMethodVisitor) invoked on a method whose annotation, code, or visitor callbacks throw any Exception.

Common situations: Bulk dex-to-java conversion where one bad method aborts the whole file; users see only this top-level message unless they inspect the cause chain.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of pxb1988/dex2jar@b5bda4fb49 (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/469636dcd0a2fd3e. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at dex-reader/src/main/java/com/googlecode/d2j/reader/DexFileReader.java:1076

                        keep = 0 != (KEEP_CLINIT & config) && method.getName().equals("<clinit>");
                    }
                    if(keep) {
                        DexCodeVisitor dcv = dmv.visitCode();
                        if (dcv != null) {
                            try {
                                acceptCode(code_off, dcv, config, (method_access_flags & DexConstants.ACC_STATIC) != 0,
                                        method);
                            } catch (Exception e) {
                                throw new DexException(e, "while accept code in method:[%s] @%08x", method.toString(),
                                        code_off);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
                dmv.visitEnd();
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new DexException(e, "while accept method:[%s]", method.toString());
        }

        return method_id;
    }

    private void read_annotation_set_ref_list(int parameter_annotation_offset, DexMethodVisitor dmv) {
        ByteBuffer in = annotationSetRefListIn;
        in.position(parameter_annotation_offset);

        int size = in.getInt();
        for (int j = 0; j < size; j++) {
            int param_annotation_offset = in.getInt();
            if (param_annotation_offset == 0) {
                continue;
            }
            DexAnnotationAble dpav = dmv.visitParameterAnnotation(j);
            try {
                if (dpav != null) {

View on GitHub (pinned to b5bda4fb49)