title: Android Studio Startup : Cannot Load Project - java.lang.NullPointerException
body: <p>I am relatively new to Android Studio (and to StackOverflow =D ) and recently started having problems with startup.</p>
  
  <p>Whenever I launch Android Studio for the first time (i.e. after PC start / restart) all I get in the Android Studio project window is a dialog saying "<strong>Cannot Load Project - java.lang.NullPointerException</strong>".</p>
  
  <p>When I click OK (no other option) there is nothing displayed in the project window. I got a red pop-up in the top right saying - <strong>IDE Internal Error Occurred, click to view details</strong>. Here is the error message I got from that:</p>
  
  <pre><code>null
  java.lang.NullPointerException
  at com.intellij.openapi.updateSettings.impl.UpdateChecker.updateAndShowResult(UpdateChecker.kt:126)
  at com.intellij.openapi.updateSettings.impl.CheckForUpdateAction.actionPerformed(CheckForUpdateAction.java:40)
  at com.intellij.openapi.actionSystem.ex.ActionUtil.performActionDumbAware(ActionUtil.java:191)
  at com.intellij.openapi.actionSystem.impl.ActionMenuItem$ActionTransmitter$1.run(ActionMenuItem.java:312)
  at com.intellij.openapi.wm.impl.FocusManagerImpl.runOnOwnContext(FocusManagerImpl.java:958)
  at com.intellij.openapi.actionSystem.impl.ActionMenuItem$ActionTransmitter.actionPerformed(ActionMenuItem.java:282)
  at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:2022)
  at com.intellij.openapi.actionSystem.impl.ActionMenuItem.fireActionPerformed(ActionMenuItem.java:110)
  at com.intellij.ui.plaf.beg.BegMenuItemUI.doClick(BegMenuItemUI.java:513)
  at com.intellij.ui.plaf.beg.BegMenuItemUI.access$300(BegMenuItemUI.java:45)
  at com.intellij.ui.plaf.beg.BegMenuItemUI$MyMouseInputHandler.mouseReleased(BegMenuItemUI.java:533)
  at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Component.java:6533)
  at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(JComponent.java:3324)
  at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Component.java:6298)
  at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Container.java:2236)
  at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4889)
  at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2294)
  at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4711)
  at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Container.java:4888)
  at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Container.java:4525)
  at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Container.java:4466)
  at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2280)
  at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Window.java:2746)
  at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4711)
  at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:758)
  at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(EventQueue.java:97)
  at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:709)
  at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:703)
  at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
  at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
  at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:86)
  at java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:731)
  at java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:729)
  at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
  at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
  at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:728)
  at com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue.defaultDispatchEvent(IdeEventQueue.java:857)
  at com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue._dispatchEvent(IdeEventQueue.java:654)
  at com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue.dispatchEvent(IdeEventQueue.java:386)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:201)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:116)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:105)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:93)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:82)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Got no idea what all this means... I am using the latest versions of the softwares on Windows 10 x64:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Android Studio 2.2.3
  Build #AI-145.3537739, built on December 2, 2016
  JRE: 1.8.0_76-release-b03 amd64
  JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Wondering why this is happening and how I might resolve it? By the way, <strong><em>this only happens for the first time</em></strong>, but I can't close it (unresponsive), so I have to End Task via Task Manager. When I start it again it does work fine, but gives the same error upon <strong>next</strong> PC start...</p>
  
  <p>(I did a lot of searching about this on the internet but couldn't find any reference to such a problem except that people had older outdated versions of software - but I am running latest stable versions of all softwares - which is why I couldn't find anything)</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be appreciated =)</p>