I’m installing Ignition 8.3 for the first time on Ubuntu 22.04. The gateway installed fine. I can to go to the gateway page to download Designer Launcher for Linux and download designerlauncher.tar.gz.
After that is where I run into problems. How do I properly install the Designer Launcher once I have the tar.gz file?
This is pretty similar to this post which contains a good answer
Essentially you install it like any other software on Linux when not installing with a package manager. You just put it in whatever directory you install applications which is usually something like
~/opt on Ubuntu for user level apps or /opt for system wide.
This also wont make a .desktop launcher on it’s own but this does a decent job explaining how to do that:
Now you should have enough info to Google any remaining questions from here since the install process for the designerlauncher is pretty standard compared to other Linux applications
I saw that post but I’m still confused because there is no .desktop file in the tar.gz file. There is an install.sh and a designerlauncher.sh. I’ve run both and attempted to run Designer Launcher from the gateway and I get a message indicating that Designer Launcher is not installed properly, or something to that effect.
Go to the ~/.ignition/ folder and find the clientlauncher-data/designerlauncher.log file.
Near the bottom of that log file there should be a line like this:
INFO [LaunchUtil ] [2025/09/25 11:14:26]: Starting Java with the following parameters: nohup /Applications/Designer Launcher.app/Contents/Resources/runtime/bin/java
-classpath /Users/pgriffith/.ignition/cache/resources/platform/launchclient.jar/00000000E344E944/launchclient.jar
-Djavaws.sr.gateway.addr.0=http://localhost:8188
-Djavaws.sr.launchts=1758824066792
-Djavaws.sr.main=com.inductiveautomation.ignition.designer.DesignerStartupHook
-Djavaws.sr.platform.edition=
-Djavaws.sr.platform.plugins=
-Xms64M
-Xmx1024M
-Djavaws.sr.memory.init=64M
-Djavaws.sr.memory.max=1024M
--add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt.event=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.tree=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf.basic=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf.synth=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.apple.eawt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.sun.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.image=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.shell=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing.plaf.synth=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing.table=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.print=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.base/sun.security.action=ALL-UNNAMED
-Xdock:name='localhost'
-Xdock:icon="/Users/pgriffith/.ignition/clientlauncher-data/images/DesignerIcon.icns"
-Dsun.java2d.d3d=false
-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=false
-Djavaws.sr.screen=0
-Djavaws.sr.scope=D
com.inductiveautomation.ignition.client.launch.BootstrapSwing &
Copy that whole line and paste it into the terminal, omitting any arguments that run it in the background (e.g. the nohup and & I'm getting on MacOS).
Then you can launch the actual designer application directly from your terminal and get the full output in the logs indicating what the actual problem is with launching.
Ran java as follows:
java /home/bob/Downloads/designerlauncher/runtime/bin/java -classpath /root/.ignition/cache/resources/platform/launchclient.jar/000000009F1E0FD9/launchclient.jar -Dignition.gateway.addr.0=http://localhost:8088 -Dignition.launchts=1761259863283 -Dignition.main=com.inductiveautomation.ignition.designer.DesignerStartupHook -Dignition.edition= -Dignition.plugins= -Xms128M -Xmx1024M -Dignition.memory.init=128M -Dignition.memory.max=1024M --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt.event=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.tree=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf.basic=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf.synth=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.apple.eawt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.image=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.shell=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing.plaf.synth=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing.table=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.print=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.base/sun.security.action=ALL-UNNAMED -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=false -Dignition.screen=0 -Dignition.scope=D com.inductiveautomation.ignition.client.launch.BootstrapSwing
Here the output:
Error: Could not find or load main class .home.bob.Downloads.designerlauncher.runtime.bin.java
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: /home/bob/Downloads/designerlauncher/runtime/bin/java
Help deciphering the meaning will be appreciated because I’m not an experienced Linux user.
Remove the first java here.
Hopefully, this is the correct command:
/home/bob/Downloads/designerlauncher/runtime/bin/java -classpath /root/.ignition/cache/resources/platform/launchclient.jar/000000009F1E0FD9/launchclient.jar -Dignition.gateway.addr.0=http://localhost:8088 -Dignition.launchts=1761259863283 -Dignition.main=com.inductiveautomation.ignition.designer.DesignerStartupHook -Dignition.edition= -Dignition.plugins= -Xms128M -Xmx1024M -Dignition.memory.init=128M -Dignition.memory.max=1024M --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt.event=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.tree=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf.basic=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf.synth=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.apple.eawt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.image=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.shell=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt.windows=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing.plaf.synth=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.swing.table=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.print=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.base/sun.security.action=ALL-UNNAMED -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=false -Dignition.screen=0 -Dignition.scope=D com.inductiveautomation.ignition.client.launch.BootstrapSwing
Results:
WARNING: package com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows not in java.desktop
WARNING: package sun.awt.windows not in java.desktop
WARNING: package com.apple.eawt not in java.desktop
Error: Could not find or load main class com.inductiveautomation.ignition.client.launch.BootstrapSwing
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.inductiveautomation.ignition.client.launch.BootstrapSwing
Thanks for the help!
How did you install Ignition itself - with our GUI installer or via a zip "installer"?
ignition-8.3.1-linux-64-installer.run
You might have better luck with our support department at this point; they can remote in and walk through your system "live" and see what might be going wrong. Though, if you're just evaluating I'm not sure how support coverage works: https://support.inductiveautomation.com/hc/en-us
This error suggests that the process for the Ignition Designer cannot start because the launchclient.jar file, which will be retrieved from the gateway you're connecting to, is malformed or incomplete in some way.
One 'hail mary' to try - you could try deleting the ~/.ignition/cache/ directory completely and launching again (via the Designer Launcher; the terminal command you've been running won't work once you delete that cache). You can try running the designer launcher as an actual application or clicking the button on the web interface, which should create a new Designer instance via "deep link".