Grails always has something new to offer, not only features but also random bugs (unfortunately). Out of the blue I couldn’t even let Grails show its own version (grails –version) let alone perform any other action. This is all I got for each and every command I tried to execute.

*** java.lang.instrument ASSERTION FAILED ***: "!errorOutstanding" with 
message transform method call failed at 
../../../src/share/instrument/JPLISAgent.c line: 844 
Exception: java.lang.StackOverflowError thrown from the 
UncaughtExceptionHandler in thread "main"

The following runtimes were used:

• Windows 7 64bit
• Java 7 Update 71 64bit
• Grails 2.4.4

Of course I removed all temporary files and folders, the “target” folder of the project and the “.grails”, “.groovy”, “.m2” and “.ivy” folders in the user directory. Nothing helped. Some say it has to do with forking processes, but playing with those settings didn’t change a thing. After all, the error happens way earlier.

Then I came across a post that mentioned to create the “.inputrc” file (on a Linux system) because through debugging it was found that Grails tries to access this files. Well, I’m not using Linux, but since I was already in the “helplessly desperate” phase I wanted to give it a shot. Surprisingly, this file already existed.

Solution: I deleted “.inputrc” from the user folder et voilà, Grails worked again.