Assertion is suppressed by 'catch'

Reports assert statements and test framework assertions that are suppressed by a surrounding catch block. Such assertions will never fail, as the thrown AssertionError will be caught and silently ignored.

Example 1:

  void javaAssertion() {
    try {
      ...
      assert 1 == 2;
    } catch (AssertionError e) {
      // the assertion is silently ignored
    }
  }

Example 2:

  @Test
  void testWithAssertJ() {
    try {
      ...
      assertThat(1).as("test").isEqualTo(2);
    } catch (AssertionError e) {
      // the assertion is silently ignored
    }
  }

Example 3:

  @Test
  void testWithJunit() {
    try {
      ...
      assertEquals(1, 2);
    } catch (AssertionError e) {
      // the assertion is silently 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.

MaskedAssertion

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 | Test frameworks

New in 2020.3

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 MaskedAssertion

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