Erlide requires a functioning Erlang runtime, or it crashes and/or hangs the whole Eclipse. This can happen when starting for the first time in a workspace and we’re working to fix it.

Sometimes you can’t even get to the dialog where the runtimes are configured… The good news is that there is a workaround: in your eclipse.ini file (in the Eclipse directory), add the following line at the end:

-Derlide.runtime=/path/to/your/erlang/installation/directory

Note that the top Erlang directory should be referenced ($ERL_TOP). This is not needed if your Erlang installation is in a “standard” place, like

• c:\program files
• c:\program files (x86)
• /usr
• /usr/lib
• /usr/lib64
• /usr/local
• /usr/local/lib
• /Library/Frameworks/erlang/Versions