PDFsam Basic not starting on Ubuntu

We recently had a number of users having problems running PDFsam Basic on latest Ubuntu, this is the typical stacktrace they get back when trying to run the application:

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javafx/scene/layout/HBox
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:1009)
at java.base/java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:174)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.defineClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:801)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.findClassOnClassPathOrNull(BuiltinClassLoader.java:699)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClassOrNull(BuiltinClassLoader.java:622)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:580)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:190)
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:499)
at org.pdfsam.community.App.main(App.java:34)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javafx.scene.layout.HBox
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:582)
at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:190)
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:499)

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Mac OS X “PDFsam is damaged and can’t be opened”

Hi Mac users,
some of you reported the “PDFsam is damaged and can’t be opened” error when trying to install the PDF Split And Merge dmg package.

After some investigation and users feedback I can finally write what is causing that. The issue is caused by a new feature of Mountain Lion and OS X Lion v10.7.5, called Gatekeeper which “help protect your Mac from malware and misbehaving apps downloaded from the Internet”. It does that by preventing you from launching apps that are not downloaded from the Mac App Store which is “The safest and most reliable place to download and install apps”. Now, assuming you still want to install PDF Split And Merge even if you didn’t download it from the “safest and most reliable place”, what can you do? You have to:

  • Open Gatekeeper settings located in “System Preferences > Security & Privacy”
  • Set “Allow applications downloaded from:” to “Anywhere” and confirm by pressing “Allow From Anywhere”
  • Launch Pdf Split And Merge
  • Once PDF Split And Merge is successfully launched, you can set back Gatekeeper option to whatever you want

Some more information can be found here

Wiki HowTo

Hi everybody,
I just want to remind you that you can use the documentation as a valuable source of information about PDFsam where many HowTos can be found.
Andrea

Cannot find javaw.exe

Windows only.
If, when you double click the pdfsam.exe, an error window shows the message “Cannot find javaw.exe”, it means that it cannot find a working Java installation. To solve this problem try installing (or reinstalling) a working Java Runtime Environment (1.4.2 or above). It can be found here http://www.java.com .

Andrea