Question

What kind of problem(s) could cause Java’s ProcessBuilder.start method to return an IOException with a note saying error=5?

Specifically, we’ve seen a remote customer system running some Java code along the lines of…

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder(cmdArray);
pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process p = pb.start();

…throw exceptions like this…

java.io.IOException: CreateProcess: C:\example\example.exe argument1 argument2 error=5
at java.lang.ProcessImpl.create(Native Method)
at java.lang.ProcessImpl.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ProcessImpl.start(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ProcessBuilder.start(Unknown Source)
at example_code_above

We have confirmed that the command noted in the exception, “C:\example\example.exe argument1 argument2” can be run successfully by hand via cmd.exe, so we are confident the command itself is not broken.

Answer 1

error=5 means one of:

1) file is not executable
2) file is not accessible

EDIT: wont throw exception
3) the command (example.exe) exits with exit code 5