Howto: Netbeans not starting up

After I installed a new plugin and restarted Netbeans (6.5), it flashed me with this error

Netbeans startup error

I believe the plugin file was corrupt and/or the xml-file with the respective settings turned to be corrupt. An expert might be able to judge from the error (see end of this entry for full error error message). After closing the error message I got a complete empty Netbeans screen.

Netbeans startup error

After investigating about remedies or similar cases, the only solution I found, is to delete (rename) the userdir (see link for more info).

Remarks:

• There should be a safemode mode to start up Netbeans (is there one?)
• Deleting the userdir is not a satisfying solution because you throw away all your personalized settings.
• Submitted as error 164329 (link)

Full error message:

org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: An invalid XML character (Unicode: 0x0) was found in the comment.
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:195)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:174)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:388)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(XMLScanner.java:1411)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLScanner.scanComment(XMLScanner.java:767)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanComment(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1036)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:945)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:648)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:807)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:737)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:107)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1132)
 at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:533)
 at org.openide.filesystems.XMLFileSystem.setXmlUrls(XMLFileSystem.java:355)
Caused: java.io.IOException: jar:file:/C:/Program%20Files/NetBeans%206.5/ide10/modules/org-netbeans-modules-db.jar!/org/netbeans/modules/db/resources/mf-layer.xml
 at org.openide.filesystems.XMLFileSystem.setXmlUrls(XMLFileSystem.java:364)
 at org.openide.filesystems.XMLFileSystem.setXmlUrls(XMLFileSystem.java:298)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.layers.ModuleLayeredFileSystem$1Updater.run(ModuleLayeredFileSystem.java:295)
 at org.openide.filesystems.EventControl.runAtomicAction(EventControl.java:120)
 at org.openide.filesystems.FileSystem.runAtomicAction(FileSystem.java:502)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.layers.ModuleLayeredFileSystem.setURLs(ModuleLayeredFileSystem.java:311)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.layers.ModuleLayeredFileSystem.addURLs(ModuleLayeredFileSystem.java:326)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.NbInstaller.loadLayers(NbInstaller.java:600)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.NbInstaller.load(NbInstaller.java:305)
 at org.netbeans.ModuleManager.enable(ModuleManager.java:906)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.ModuleList.installNew(ModuleList.java:428)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.ModuleList.trigger(ModuleList.java:364)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.ModuleSystem.restore(ModuleSystem.java:276)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.Main.getModuleSystem(Main.java:165)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.Main.start(Main.java:312)
 at org.netbeans.core.startup.TopThreadGroup.run(TopThreadGroup.java:110)
[catch] at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)