Project: Eclipse_Platform_UI
Bug 267359 [Commands] The platform hangs upon shutdown when an Action Handler dispose method throws an exception
Reported: 2009-03-06 08:45:53 | Status: verified fixed

Steps to reproduce: 1. Write a simple plugin with a button in the toolbar and an action handler associated. 2. In the action handler, in the dispose method throw a runtime exception, e.g. NullPointerException 3. Start the Eclipse IDE with the plugin 4. Quit Eclipse. Expected behavior - Eclipse quits and the process is terminated. Actual behavior - Eclipse process just hangs indefinitely until being killed. It seems that there is no proper handling for exceptions during dispose, thus, the whole shutdown sequence just aborts after destroying most of the resources. This is not a good behavior. At least it should be clearly documented in the dispose method Javadoc. Seeking out my bug almost drove me crazy.

Files changed in fix:
bundles/org.eclipse.ui.workbench/Eclipse UI/org/eclipse/ui/internal/handlers/HandlerPersistence.java