'wait()' or 'notify()' is not in synchronized context

Reports calls to wait(), notify(), and notifyAll() that are not made inside a corresponding synchronized statement or synchronized method.

Calling these methods on an object without holding a lock on that object causes IllegalMonitorStateException. Such a construct is not necessarily an error, as the necessary lock may be acquired before the containing method is called, but it's worth looking at.

Example:

  class Sync {
    private final Object lock = new Object();

    void test() throws InterruptedException {
      synchronized (this) {
        lock.wait(); // 'lock.wait()' is not synchronized on 'lock'
      }
    }
  }

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.

WaitNotifyWhileNotSynced

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 | Java | Threading issues

Inspection ID: WaitNotifyNotInSynchronizedContext

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 WaitNotifyWhileNotSynced

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

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3, Qodana for JVM 2025.3,

Last modified: 03 December 2025