I did a quick search here and discovered what looked like a similar problem from 2020. I uninstalled Bitwarden, downloaded the latest version, and attempted to reinstall it. The install stopped and advised me to close the program before it could continue. I checked and it didn’t seem to be running, and I had apparently uninstalled it correctly, so I clicked continue. At that point I got the same Java error message as above. So, I uninstalled again, but this time I checked for running processes and found several. I ended the all and I’m ready to try to reinstall and try again, but I thought I’d seek advice here first.
Any advice would be appreciated. Also, Bitwarden appears to be running fine in Firefox. Maybe I don’t need to install it on the desktop at all?
You should try to deinstall the desktop app again. Then delete the local storage (Storage | Bitwarden) and after that reinstall.
If you don’t need the “biometric” unlock option for the browser extension then the desktop app is not necessary.
PS: Though to the desktop app… especially for Windows and MacOS, the desktop app might get some interesting new features, probably in the next months (?!) - see that snippet of the current January roadmap:
I’ll try to install it again and report back here, and look forward to any new functionality.
My desktop doesn’t have biometrics (it’s an old machine), so I note happily that I don’t need the desktop app.
Off topic a bit, I do have a modern laptop with a fingerprint reader. I had biometrics working on that (with the "desktop app installed on the laptop and the browser extension running on Firefox) awhile back and then things went bad and a fix had to be developed by the Bitwarden team over several months. I learned to use “unlock with device” in the meantime.
Evidently a fix was eventually made to the biometrics functionality so I tried using biometrics again and, try as I might, I just can’t get it to work.
I’m happy enough to log out and log back in “using a device” and just give up on biometrics.
On my desktop, I found a folder named Bitwarden-updater in AppData\Local and a folder named Bitwarden in AppData\Roaming, which was empty. I deleted each of these folders and proceeded with the installation which was successful. Thanks again for your assistance.
I understand “biometrics” a little better now, and I actually set up the application to unlock with Windows Hello, which requests my pin rather than a biometric. It seems to be working.
