Empty 'catch' block

Reports empty catch blocks. While occasionally intended, empty catch blocks can make debugging extremely difficult.

Example:

try {
  throw new Exception()
}
catch (Exception e) {
}

After the quick-fix is applied:

try {
  throw new Exception()
}
catch (Exception ignored) {
}

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

GroovyEmptyCatchBlock

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Groovy | Error handling

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Empty 'catch' block inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Comments count as content: Default value:
Selected
Ignore when catch parameter is named ignore or ignored: Default value:
Selected

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection GroovyEmptyCatchBlock

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025