Android app crashes on load - classNotFoundException

This has been driving me mad for a couple of days :)

IDEA is my weapon of choice. During an editing session of inconsequential changes (or so I thought) of adjusting layouts, nudging buttons a few pixels left to line up etc I compiled and ran the project. I got a ClassNotFoundException when my app starts. It is thrown by java.lang.Bootloader. I put a breakpoint on the call to the Bootloader and can see that the offending class is my main application class. Here's how it looks:

public class Rands extends Application{



    public static SharedPreferences preferences;



    private static ArrayList<Favourite> favourites;



    private static Rands instance;



    public Rands(){

        instance = this;

    }

and in the manifest:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

      package="rands.mycompany.com"

      android:installLocation="preferExternal"

      android:versionCode="8"

      android:versionName="0.8">

    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" />



    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.VIBRATE" />



    <application android:name="rands.mycompany.com.Rands"

                 android:icon="@drawable/icon"

             android:label="@string/app_name">



    <activity android:name="rands.mycompany.com.RandsMainActivity"

              android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar"

              android:label="@string/app_name">



        <intent-filter>

            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

        </intent-filter>



    </activity>



    <activity android:name="rands.mycompany.com.MainMenuActivity"

              android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar"

              android:label="MainMenuActivity"/>

This is where things get funky. There is NOTHING of relevance in logcat. I see the app copying, installing and starting then I get the exception. The exception occurs before the constructor on my application class is called. If I load the project in Eclipse, it works fine. I load in back into IDEA and I get the exception. I have two phones, a Desire with 2.3 and a Tmobile Pulse (Huawei) with 2.2. It happens on both phones and in the emulator. If I run the app outside the IDE (i.e. from the launcher) it runs fine.

I make these assumptions:

1. As there is nothing in logcat, it smells like a platform bug
   
   



2. As the project works fine in Eclipse, I'm assuming that my manifest and application class are fine.
   
   

I've also tried

<application android:name=".Rands"

Any clues?

Cheers