What to Do If You Have the Wrong Java Runtime Environment

• Release 20190119 and later require Java 8
• Release 20160515 and later require Java 7
• Release 20090818 and later require Java 6
• Release 20060719 and later require Java 5

FitNesse requires version 1.8 or later of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). If you see the messages:

C:\fitnesse>java -jar fitnesse-standalone.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
java/lang/CharSequence
        at fitnesse.FitNesse.parseCommandLine(Unknown Source)
        at fitnesse.FitNesse.main(Unknown Source)

Then you need to download and install version 8 or 9 of the JRE. Follow these steps:

• Press a key to close the command window
• Go to Java.com and download and install Java by following the instructions.
• (if required) Change the PATH environment variable so that it points to the new JRE.
  • Go to the /bin folder that contains java.exe, and copy the pathname (for example, C:\Program Files\Java\j2re<version>)
  • Go to Settings>Control Panel>System>Advanced>Environment Variables>PATH>Edit
  • Paste in that same complete pathname
  • Save the PATH environment variable, and close the System control panel
  • Start FitNesse again as described above

What to do if Apache Velocity is not found

There are two builds of the FitNesse binary:

• fitnesse.jar contains only the fitnesse code, no dependencies. This is the version you use if you're using a dependency management system like Maven or Apache Ivy.
• fitnesse-standalone.jar is the big one-has-all jar file containing FitNesse and support libraries.

If you're seeing this:

C:\fitnesse>java -jar fitnesse.jar
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/velocity/context/Context
        at fitnesse.FitNesseContext.(FitNesseContext.java:29)
        at fitnesse.FitNesseContext.(FitNesseContext.java:39)
        at fitnesseMain.FitNesseMain.loadContext(FitNesseMain.java:88)
        at fitnesseMain.FitNesseMain.launchFitNesse(FitNesseMain.java:36)

You probably want the latter.