[news.eclipse.newcomer] Sudden Death at startup

[Zebro <zebro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi guys,

I have now been working for months with my eclipse installation. This morning however it doesn't start up correctly anymore.
I can see the ui, but can't see any files of my project in project explorer. The opened file editors remain empty and I get the following error message everywhere (and if I try to refresh, rebuild index or do something else I get other error messages. Nothing works!):

eclipse.buildId=M20090211-1700
java.version=1.6.0_0
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=linux, ARCH=x86_64, WS=gtk, NL=de_DE
Command-line arguments:  -os linux -ws gtk -arch x86_64


Error
Sat Sep 12 13:57:02 CEST 2009
An internal error occurred during: "Initialize Indexing".

java.lang.NullPointerException
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.settings.model.CConfigurationD escriptionCache.loadData(CConfigurationDescriptionCache.java :104)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.settings.model.CProjectDescrip tion.loadDatas(CProjectDescription.java:194)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.settings.model.CProjectDescrip tionManager.loadProjectDescription(CProjectDescriptionManage r.java:1042)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.settings.model.CProjectDescrip tionManager.getProjectDescription(CProjectDescriptionManager .java:547)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.settings.model.CProjectDescrip tionManager.getProjectDescription(CProjectDescriptionManager .java:523)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.settings.model.CProjectDescrip tionManager.getProjectDescription(CProjectDescriptionManager .java:515)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.pdom.CProjectDescriptionListen er.isProjectCreationComplete(CProjectDescriptionListener.jav a:87)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.pdom.CProjectDescriptionListen er$1.postponeIndexerSetup(CProjectDescriptionListener.java:3 9)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.pdom.PDOMManager.postponeSetup (PDOMManager.java:1333)
at  org.eclipse.cdt.internal.core.pdom.PDOMManager$3.run(PDOMMan ager.java:695)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:55)


I have no clue where this comes from. To give some hints what I did in the last couple of days: several days ago I installed the intel compiler plugin, but afterwards eclips still worked for several days correctly.
Yesterday I tried some changes in the projects indexer settings, but set it back to the defaults in the end.

Can anyone give me some hint how to fix this?

I even installed the latest eclipse version and tried to start with this one ... same result. So I guess it is a mistake somewhere in the workspace?!

If you need any further files or information feel of course free to ask.

Appreciate any help,

Zebro