I think this is the same problem we used to have when you could only create one Roo project per session because of an Apache Felix deadlock. We implemented a workaround so that a separate STS/Roo cache was created per project, as opposed to having a global cache. But the problem still arises that the Roo shell will hang when (re)creating particular projects. Now I've found this reference to a deadlock fix in Felix: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FELIX-3393 and I'm wondering if upgrading the Felix framework might finally fix this problem for us.

Roo itself is still using Apache Felix 3.2.2, but we should try to use the latest Apache Felix 4.0.3 version to see if that helps with this.

ERROR: Error creating bundle cache. (java.lang.Exception: Unable to lock bundle cache: java.nio.channels.OverlappingFileLockException)
java.lang.Exception: Unable to lock bundle cache: java.nio.channels.OverlappingFileLockException
at org.apache.felix.framework.cache.BundleCache.<init>(BundleCache.java:176)
at org.apache.felix.framework.Felix.init(Felix.java:629)
at org.springframework.roo.shell.eclipse.Main.start(Main.java:251)
at org.springframework.roo.shell.eclipse.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:165)
at org.springframework.ide.eclipse.roo.ui.internal.RooShellTab$8.run(RooShellTab.java:431)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:54)
Could not create framework: org.osgi.framework.BundleException: Error creating bundle cache.
org.osgi.framework.BundleException: Error creating bundle cache.
at org.apache.felix.framework.Felix.init(Felix.java:634)
at org.springframework.roo.shell.eclipse.Main.start(Main.java:251)
at org.springframework.roo.shell.eclipse.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:165)
at org.springframework.ide.eclipse.roo.ui.internal.RooShellTab$8.run(RooShellTab.java:431)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:54)
Caused by: java.lang.Exception: Unable to lock bundle cache: java.nio.channels.OverlappingFileLockException
at org.apache.felix.framework.cache.BundleCache.<init>(BundleCache.java:176)
at org.apache.felix.framework.Felix.init(Felix.java:629)
... 4 more

Anything we can do about this?

I've been diving deeper into Roo lately and I have the Felix source code to look at, so I'll revisit on Monday.

When we initialize Felix, we can set the property "felix.cache.locking" to false, which will allow concurrent access to the bundle cache. Not sure how risky that is, but it's something we could consider for M2.

I briefly considered the possibility to share one instance of the Felix framework for all of our Roo tabs/applications, but we have to seed Felix with the "roo.working.directory" property in order for Roo to know the project working directory when launched from STS.

How can we set the property "felix.cache.locking" to false ?

You can add the property to your <roo.home>/conf/config.properties. I don't know what impact it has if you're running 2 or more Roo projects at the same time in STS, so I haven't enabled it for STS yet. It would be nice if you let could let us know how it works for you.

This project has moved its issue management to GitHub Issues:
https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-ide/issues

Therefore we closed the majority of old issues, like this one here. If you think this issue is still valid and should be fixed or worked on, please feel free to file it as a new issue on GitHub (using the link above).