When setting up a shared agent on Windows we receive Unable to launch the Application dialog

Article ID:204624424
1 minute readKnowledge base

Issue

When launching a Windows shared agent we get "Unable to launch the application" with a java.lang.NullPointerException

service_NPE.png
application_error.png

Environment

  • CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise

  • Windows 2012

Resolution

In one customer’s case their agent names had spaces (e.g. "EXAMPLE AGENT NAME")

https://jenkins_url/computer/EXAMPLE%20AGENT%20NAME/jenkins-agent.jnlp

The %20 sequence used to URL-encode space can confuse Windows javaws, as the % character is used on Windows for environment variable.

Removing spaces from the name resolves this issue.

This article is part of our Knowledge Base and is provided for guidance-based purposes only. The solutions or workarounds described here are not officially supported by CloudBees and may not be applicable in all environments. Use at your own discretion, and test changes in a safe environment before applying them to production systems.