A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Setting a custom JFR repository location (e.g. '-XX:FlightRecorderOptions=repository=.') can cause the JVM to not start and crash with the following error, if the ServiceLoader mechanism is used for type 'java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider':

[0.097s][error][jfr,startup] java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider: Provider org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider not found
java.util.ServiceConfigurationError: java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider: Provider org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider not found
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Failure when starting JFR on_create_vm_2

This is easily reproducible with a minimal ZoneRulesProvider implementation. We encountered this problem initially with the ical4j library, for which we also reported a bug: https://github.com/ical4j/ical4j/issues/808

The following is enough to trigger the issue with that library:

java -XX:FlightRecorderOptions=repository=. -classpath ical4j-4.1.1.jar

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
In an empty directory with the patch from below:
- patch -p1 < example.patch
- mvn compile exec:exec

, run 'mvn exec:exec'

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Execution should print "Success"
ACTUAL -
JVM crashes with error:

[0.053s][error][jfr,startup] java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider: Provider org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider not found
java.util.ServiceConfigurationError: java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider: Provider org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider not found
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Failure when starting JFR on_create_vm_2


---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
diff --git c/pom.xml i/pom.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8997c14
--- /dev/null
+++ i/pom.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
+ xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
+ <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
+ <groupId>org.example</groupId>
+ <artifactId>jfr-service-loader-crash</artifactId>
+ <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
+ <properties>
+ <maven.compiler.release>21</maven.compiler.release>
+ </properties>
+
+ <build>
+ <plugins>
+ <plugin>
+ <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
+ <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+ <version>3.5.1</version>
+ <configuration>
+ <executable>java</executable>
+ <arguments>
+ <argument>-classpath</argument>
+ <classpath/>
+ <!--
+ specifying any custom repository location causes the VM to crash with error:
+ [error][jfr,startup] java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider: Provider org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider not found
+ java.util.ServiceConfigurationError: java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider: Provider org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider not found
+ Error occurred during initialization of VM
+ Failure when starting JFR on_create_vm_2
+ -->
+ <argument>-XX:FlightRecorderOptions=repository=.</argument>
+ <argument>org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider</argument>
+ </arguments>
+ </configuration>
+ </plugin>
+ </plugins>
+ </build>
+</project>
diff --git c/src/main/java/org/example/TestZoneRulesProvider.java i/src/main/java/org/example/TestZoneRulesProvider.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ba5fa03
--- /dev/null
+++ i/src/main/java/org/example/TestZoneRulesProvider.java
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+package org.example;
+
+import java.time.zone.ZoneRules;
+import java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider;
+import java.util.NavigableMap;
+import java.util.Set;
+
+public class TestZoneRulesProvider extends ZoneRulesProvider {
+
+ public static void main(String[] args) {
+ System.out.println("Success");
+ }
+
+ @Override
+ protected Set<String> provideZoneIds() {
+ return Set.of();
+ }
+
+ @Override
+ protected ZoneRules provideRules(String zoneId, boolean forCaching) {
+ return null;
+ }
+
+ @Override
+ protected NavigableMap<String, ZoneRules> provideVersions(String zoneId) {
+ return null;
+ }
+}
diff --git c/src/main/resources/META-INF/services/java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider i/src/main/resources/META-INF/services/java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a63606
--- /dev/null
+++ i/src/main/resources/META-INF/services/java.time.zone.ZoneRulesProvider
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+org.example.TestZoneRulesProvider

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