IntelliJ IDEA "cannot resolve symbol" and "cannot resolve method"

Question

What are common causes for IntelliJ IDEA not being able to resolve built-in JVM types and methods? For example, when I mouse over String the tooltip says "Cannot resolve symbol 'String'". It's as if IntelliJ has doesn't know where the JVM is.

By the way, I am running OS X 10.6.6. Everything was working fine until I ran the system update this morning.

possible duplicate of [IntelliJ IDEA JDK configuration on Mac OS](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4481951/intellij-idea-jdk-configuration-on-mac-os) — random, Oct 13 '13 at 18:21

score 106 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

106

Most likely JDK configuration is not valid, try to remove and add the JDK again as I've described in the related question here.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

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answered Jan 06 '11 at 19:20

CrazyCoder

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Thanks - my Java updated itself over night and the path to the JDK had become invalid – Tom Chamberlain Feb 21 '17 at 09:06

score 51 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 28 '15 at 03:03

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First check if you have configured JDK correctly:

Go to File->Project Structure -> SDKs
your JDK home path should be something like this: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachine/jdk.1.7.0_79.jdk/Contents/Home
Hit Apply and then OK

Secondly check if you have provided in path in Library's section

Go to File->Project Structure -> Libraries
Hit the + button
Add the path to your src folder
Hit Apply and then OK

This should fix the problem

answered Sep 28 '15 at 03:03

user4660857

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Second one fixed the problem for me, but why? – Menasheh Jan 25 '17 at 22:30
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this also fixed my problems..and I had many "cannot resolve symbol/method" problems that appeared SUDDENLY....without any changes to the code or the library configurations..I would really appreciate an explanation to this answer to understand the source of the mistake – dieHellste Feb 18 '19 at 10:26
what's the equivalent to Libraries in the new version of intelliJ? – Javier Heisecke Jan 26 '21 at 12:38

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 06 '17 at 02:03

For me, IntelliJ could autocomplete packages, but never seemed to admit there were actual classes at any level of the hierarchy. Neither re-choosing the SDK nor re-creating the project seemed to fix it.

What did fix it was to delete the per-user IDEA directory ( in my case ~/.IntelliJIdea2017.1/) which meant losing all my other customizations... But at least it made the issue go away.

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 21 '20 at 05:24

I was facing the same problem when import projects into IntelliJ.

for in my case first, check SDK details and check you have configured JDK correctly or not.

Go to File-> Project Structure-> platform Settings-> SDKs

Check your JDK is correct or not.

Next, I Removed project from IntelliJ and delete all IntelliJ and IDE related files and folder from the project folder (.idea, .settings, .classpath, dependency-reduced-pom). Also, delete the target folder and re-import the project.

The above solution worked in my case.

If that doesn't help, go to IntelliJ File-> Project Structure-> Project Settings-> SDKs and change project SDK. After pressing Ok, all Java classes should be valid — Benas, Aug 30 '21 at 10:50

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 27 '21 at 21:19

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For me, I had to remove the intellij internal sdk and started to use my local sdk. When I started to use the internal, the error was gone.

answered Feb 27 '21 at 21:19

Thiago Cavalcanti

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 12 '21 at 11:16

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First of all you should try File | Invalidate Caches and if it doesn't help, delete IDEA system directory. Then re-import the Maven project and see if it helps.

answered Aug 12 '21 at 11:16

sarjeet singh

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 01 '22 at 19:56

I tried almost everything but nothing was helping with the ibm jdk 1.8. to fix this issue. then I found an article from https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-279214/Cannot-resolve-symbol-String-when-using-IBM-JDK-180 and it worked like charm!!!

so sharing original help credit goes to @Serge Barano. incase anybody needs and not able to able to resolve the issue using previous solutions like me.

according to the article answer is:

IBM JDK has a weird layout and the jar with the String class is in bin directory for some reason:

d:\dev\ibm_sdk80\jre\bin\default\jclSC180\vm.jar

If you add it to the JDK classpath in IntelliJ IDEA, the issue should resolve:

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 18 '21 at 09:42

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For me ,

File -> project structure -> Project Language Level (11) selection worked. Local variable syntax for lambda paramters.

answered Oct 18 '21 at 09:42

Rishabh Dugar

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 27 '22 at 18:14

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In my case, cloning repo from the remote was the easiest way to solve this issue.

answered Apr 27 '22 at 18:14

Temur Isroilov

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IntelliJ IDEA "cannot resolve symbol" and "cannot resolve method"

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