I installed a new version of java last night and this morning it caused minecraft to crash when installing.

 

Here is an edited version of the crash log.

---- Minecraft Crash Report ----

// Hey, that tickles! Hehehe!

 

Time: 24/01/13 3:55 PM

Description: Failed to start game

 

cpw.mods.fml.common.LoaderException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unknown character '|' in 'C:/Documents and Settings/pledgeme/Application Data/.minecraft/config/forge.cfg:1'

at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.identifyMods(Loader.java:323)

at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.loadMods(Loader.java:458)

at cpw.mods.fml.client.FMLClientHandler.beginMinecraftLoading(FMLClientHandler.java:161)

at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.a(Minecraft.java:410)

at asq.a(SourceFile:56)

at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.run(Minecraft.java:744)

at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unknown character '|' in 'C:/Documents and Settings/pledgeme/Application Data/.minecraft/config/forge.cfg:1'

at net.minecraftforge.common.Configuration.load(Configuration.java:612)

at net.minecraftforge.common.Configuration.<init>(Configuration.java:89)

at net.minecraftforge.common.ForgeDummyContainer.<init>(ForgeDummyContainer.java:47)

at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)

at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)

at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Unknown Source)

at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.identifyMods(Loader.java:318)

... 6 more

 

 

A detailed walkthrough of the error, its code path and all known details is as follows:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

-- System Details --

Details:

Minecraft Version: 1.4.7

Operating System: Windows XP (x86) version 5.1

Java Version: 1.7.0_11, Oracle Corporation

Java VM Version: Java HotSpot Client VM (mixed mode), Oracle Corporation

Memory: 464480552 bytes (442 MB) / 519110656 bytes (495 MB) up to 1037959168 bytes (989 MB)

JVM Flags: 2 total; -Xms512m -Xmx1024m

AABB Pool Size: 0 (0 bytes; 0 MB) allocated, 0 (0 bytes; 0 MB) used

Suspicious classes: FML and Forge are installed

IntCache: cache: 0, tcache: 0, allocated: 0, tallocated: 0

FML: MCP v7.26a FML v4.7.22.539 Minecraft Forge 6.6.0.507 2 mods loaded, 0 mods active

mcp [Minecraft Coder Pack] (minecraft.jar)

FML [Forge Mod Loader] (coremods)

LWJGL: 2.4.2

OpenGL: Quadro NVS 160M/PCI/SSE2 GL version 2.1.2, NVIDIA Corporation

Is Modded: Definitely; Client brand changed to 'forge,fml'

Type: Client (map_client.txt)

Texture Pack: Default

Profiler Position: N/A (disabled)

Vec3 Pool Size: ~~ERROR~~ NullPointerException: null

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

[ The log file is edited because it wouldn't let me copy the character in this part of the log

"Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unknown character '|' in 'C:/Documents and Settings/pledgeme/Application Data/.minecraft/config/forge.cfg:1'"    I replaced it with a look alike "|".  ]

 

I FIXED it by deleting all the characters in the forge.cfg file in the config directory in .minecraft directory.  (Backing up the file first in case it didn't fix the problem.)

 

Posted here in case anyone else is having the same problem and doesn't know how to fix it.

forge doesn't know how to handle unicode properly

It should as long as you save the file with the byte order marker.

We can't really do anything to automatically detect unicode, there are reasons why the BOM exists.