krinsdeath

Bad news. The issue appears to manifest itself again with Java 7 on an updated OS (previous was FreeBSD 8.2 with JDK 6): [spoiler=java -version]bash# java -version openjdk version "1.7.0_04" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_04-b22) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.0-b21, mixed mode) [spoiler=OS] bash# uname -mrs FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE-p3 amd64 [spoiler=error log] Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException at cpw.mods.fml.relauncher.Downloader.makeHeadless(Downloader.java:137) at cpw.mods.fml.relauncher.FMLRelauncher.showWindow(FMLRelauncher.java:67) at cpw.mods.fml.relauncher.FMLRelauncher.relaunchServer(FMLRelauncher.java:117) at cpw.mods.fml.relauncher.FMLRelauncher.handleServerRelaunch(FMLRelauncher.java:33) at net.minecraft.server.MinecraftServer.main(MinecraftServer.java:1258) Server is being started with pretty typical flags: [spoiler=startup flags]bash# java -Xms160M -Xmx600M -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing -XX:ParallelGCThreads=2 -XX:+AggressiveOpts -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui The same build of FML/Mineforge works fluidly now on 8.2-RELEASE-p3 with JDK 1.6.0-b23, but not on the above specs.

You are a champion among men! I work for a GSP and this could have been a pretty big problem. Thanks for all the help and the speedy fix.

Hey cpw! Thanks for the experimental build. It cleared things right up. I forgot to mention that the problem initially occurred on a completely barebones installation of FreeBSD (using OpenJDK 1.6.0.0_23, 64 bit server). I was able to replicate it on a totally barebones installation of Slackware 13.37 as well (no window management or libraries installed). Same FreeBSD system with this new build (attached to your post) fixes the issue.

When attempting to run the latest builds of Forge (200 to 230) on my headless server (no window managers of any kind), the server fails to start. Console output: http://pastie.org/private/q9clitpw0ojo0vkczmw5ag No Forge*.log or ModLoader.txt is created, as the server fails before any such things happen. No patcher or launcher is used. Installation of Forge is in minecraft_server.jar (not the client!) and contains ONLY the builds mentioned above (minecraftforge-universal-4.0.0.230.zip, for example), no ModLoader or ModLoaderMP. From what I can gather, the issue is specifically limited to the lack of an installed window manager; whether or not it is running seems irrelevant (with X11 installed I can start the server even without Xorg running). The same jar works on both Windows and Slackware Linux so long as a window manager is installed. I'm fairly confident that the problem is the lack of a null check in Downloader.java, after it fails to instantiate an instance of the JOptionPane due to a lack of any installed libraries with which to create said pane.