Debugging eclipse dropins

If you are attempting to use dropins, but your bundles are not being found, first ensure org.eclipse.equinox.ds and org.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins are marked to auto-start.

You can check these in bundles.info file in eclipse "eclipse/configuration/org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator/bundles.info"

Search for an entries of org.eclipse.equinox.ds and org.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins

Example:
org.eclipse.equinox.ds,1.4.1.v20120926-201320,plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.ds_1.4.1.v20120926-201320.jar,2,true

org.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins,1.1.200.v20120301-2145,plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins_1.1.200.v20120301-2145.jar,4,true

Mark both of them to true, if it's not set already.

Resolution errors with dropins are silently ignored. To enable useful logging messages, place the following tracing options in your .options file:

org.eclipse.equinox.p2.core/debug=true
org.eclipse.equinox.p2.core/reconciler=true

We can create this file in eclipse root directory with name .options and add above 2 lines in it.
eclipse/.options

And now run your eclipse in -debug -console mode.


Resources:
https://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox/p2/Getting_Started