a cryptic error on using Java agents in build 144

[Mandy Chung]

> On Nov 17, 2016, at 7:48 AM, Alan Bateman <alan.bateman at oracle.com> wrote:
> 
> On 16/11/2016 17:48, Roman Shevchenko wrote:
> 
>> Nope (sorry, should have mentioned this).
> This could only be one of two things so there's enough here to say that this is a bug (a regression in jdk-9+143). In thaht build we cleaned up the scenario that is the initial module on the module path but no class path. When running with -javaagent then the class path is extended which leads to a NPE (you can't see it because the exception is cleared in the VM). I'll create a bug for this and we'll get it fixed. You can work around it in the mean-time by adding `-cp <anything>` to the command line.

I have created a bug and a patch for it:
  https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8169909

Thanks for reporting.

Mandy