Fix Common Gephi Errors
There are a few errors students often run into in my classes that use Gephi. Here are some of the most common with fixes.
“Error: Cannot find Java 1.8 or higher”
You checked and you have Java 1.8 or higher installed, right? (if not, to do that — that’s the problem).
This error usually happens on Windows and there’s an easy solution. Go to the Gephi folder in your Applications folder. If you’re on windows 10, look in C:\Program Files (x86)\Gephi-0.9.1\bin\
There will be two versions of Gephi in there. They are probably called gephi.exe and gephi64.exe. Try them both. One of them will probably work for you.
On A Mac: Gephi will not launch or just shows a spinning ball
In Fall 2022, I noticed a number of my students on macs were having this issue installing the latest version of Gephi. I haven’t traced down the issue yet, but a solution is to simply use a slightly older version, 0.9.2.
Download gephi-0.9.2-macos.dmg under Assets at the bottom of this page https://github.com/gephi/gephi/releases/tag/v0.9.2
The Graph Disappeared!
You’re going along fine when all of a sudden, there’s just a big grey space where the graph used to be! It will look something like this:
Do not panic and please do not uninstall and reinstall Gephi (the thing students do most before asking me). All that happened here is that you accidentally closed the graph window. Go to the Window menu at the top and select Graph and it will come right back:
Note that this works for all kinds of things that seem to have disappeared. If you can’t find the layout section or the Appearance, you probably closed it by accident. Just go to the Window menu and pick the thing you need and it will come back on the screen.
Impossible to find a compatible Importer
This almost always means your file has the wrong extension. Often times, if you are downloading data, your browser will add a .txt or .csv onto the file name.
To prevent that, make sure when you save, that you change the “format” to “All Files”
If you have already downloaded the data, you need to make sure you turn on the option to see file extensions and rename the file.
On a mac, click on your file in the finder. Do Command-i or go to File > Get Info. Click the arrow next to Name & Extension to expand the section. To show the extension, deselect “Hide extension.” Then rename the file to have the extension it should have.
On Windows, go to the folder that has the file. Click the View menu. Check the box next to “File name Extensions”. Then rename the file.
Once you’ve done this so the file name is correct, gephi should open it fine.
Double Clicking a File Does Not Open It
Because of the architecture of Gephi, you generally cannot just double click a file and have it open in Gephi. Instead, launch Gephi. Go to the File menu and select open. Then navigate to your file and select it to open it.
