# Feedback and Troubleshooting

If things do not work, especially simple things like `ant -version`, then something is wrong with your configuration. Before filing bug reports and emailing all the ant mailing lists

1. Check your environment variables. Are ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME correct? If they have quotes or trailing slashes, remove them.
2. Unset CLASSPATH; if that is wrong things go horribly wrong. Ant does not need the CLASSPATH variable defined to anything to work.
3. Make sure there are no versions of crimson.jar or other XML parsers in JRE/ext
4. Is your path correct? is Ant on it? What about JDK/bin? have you tested this? If you are using Jikes, is it on the path? A createProcess error (especially with ID=2 on windows) usually means executable not found on the path.
5. Which version of ant are you running? Other applications distribute a copy -it may be being picked up by accident.
6. If a task is failing to run is optional.jar in ANT_HOME/lib? Are there any libraries which it depends on missing?
7. If a task doesn't do what you expect, run `ant -verbose` or `ant -debug` to see what is happening

If you can't fix your problem, start with the Ant User Mailing List . These are other ant users who will help you learn to use ant. If they cannot fix it then someone may suggest filing a bug report, which will escalate the issue. Remember of course, that support, like all open source development tasks, is voluntary. If you haven't invested time in helping yourself by following the steps above, it is unlikely that anyone will invest the time in helping you.

Also, if you don't understand something, the Ant User Mailing List is the place to ask questions. Not the developer list, nor the individuals whose names appears in the source and documentation. If they answered all such emails, nobody would have any time to improve ant.

To provide feedback on this software, please subscribe to the Ant User Mailing List

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A searchable archive can be found at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com. Other archives will be documented online at Mailing Lists Archives