'wait()' not called in loop

Reports calls to wait() that are not made inside a loop.

wait() is normally used to suspend a thread until some condition becomes true. As the thread could have been waken up for a different reason, the condition should be checked after the wait() call returns. A loop is a simple way to achieve this.

Example:

  class BoundedCounter {
    private int count;
    synchronized void inc() throws InterruptedException {
      if (count >= 10) wait();
      ++count;
    }
  }

Good code should look like this:

  class BoundedCounter {
    private int count;
    synchronized void inc() throws InterruptedException {
      while (count >= 10) wait();
      ++count;
    }
  }

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.

WaitNotInLoop

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: WaitNotInLoop

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 WaitNotInLoop

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