Java Woes on Snow Leopard (10.6)
Correction: I just discovered that this is not a J2SE 6.0 issue but rather a 64-bit issue. The 64-bit version of the J2SE doesn’t play nice with Aventail Connection. Simple updating your preferences to put J2SE 6.0 (32-bit) ahead of the 64-bit version works and you don’t have to do all of this.
I just installed Mac OS 10.6, Snow Leopard, on Friday before I went on vacation and was disappointed to find that the upgraded version of java that it had installed broke my Aventail Connect VPN client. Neither the web interface nor the desktop client works under Snow leopard.
It would appear that you can run different versions of java concurrently but Snow Leopard lies marking java 1.6 as 1.5.0; looking at the confusing mess of java version symlinks it’s no wonder things don’t work:
Snow Leopard Lies About Java Versions
It turns out the fix for this is pretty simple, just downgrade java versions. To do that you’ll need to grab a version from 10.5 Leopard. There’s a version posted at the University of Washington and I’ll mirror a copy when I get a chance. Download this and untar it. Here’s the complete set of steps:
cd /tmp/ wget http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/isdal/snow_leopard_workaround/java.1.5.0-leopard.tar.gz tar -xvzf java.1.5.0-leopard.tar.gz su mv 1.5.0 /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0-leopard cd /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/ rm 1.5.0 ln -s 1.5.0-leopard 1.5.0
Once that’s done you should now be able to mark that version of java as the preferred version. To do this you need to run the ‘Java Preferences.app’ which is located in /Applications/Utilities. The only required changes are to re-arrange the versions of java for both applets and applications. This is what my final configuration looks like:
Revised Java Settings
Now that java has been downgraded successfully you should be able to start up Aventail Connect and connect to your VPN just fine. The browser version works again too. This shouldn’t affect any other java applications on your system but I haven’t done any testing to verify this. In any case, once Sonicwall updates their client for Aventail you can just move the J2SE 5.0 version to the bottom of the priority list and continue working as usual.
Thanks for finding the root cause of this problem. You helped me get back to work!
Jamie said this on September 10th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Thanks for this, but the swapping of v6 32 and 64 bit doesn’t help me. I also switched Safari to 32bit and still no luck. Any idea how I might get the version 5 from Leopard? I have my original Leopard install disk here. Also, for some reason the commands you listed for getting v5 don’t work for me either! If I type wget at the Terminal, I get the command not found error.
thanks again!
Denis said this on September 19th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Instead of wget you could use this command:
Mike said this on September 19th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I had already tried that and it didn’t seem to work. I figured I maybe made a mistake so I’d cut & paste your text, but I clicked it by mistake and down comes the file!
Thanks you very much indeed! Now to see if it fixes my problem…
Denis said this on September 20th, 2009 at 3:15 am
The order of versions in java preferences in the picture is wrong. You need to place J2SE 5.0 32bit to the top for both the applications and plugin.
Jason said this on September 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
@Jason I was able to get it working just putting J2SE 6 (32-bit) ahead of the 64-bit version. If that doesn’t solve your problem and you need to downgrade to J2SE 5 you’ll need to have the order switched.
Mike said this on September 23rd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I have Snow Leopard 10.6.1 installed on two machines (old 2006 Mac Mini and similar vintage Mac Book Pro) and my Java preferences only show the 32bit on both machines. Yet Aventail still doesn’t work. Any suggestions? Thanks, Colin
Colin Telmer said this on September 24th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Thanks for giving me the ability to get back on track of my projects. I hate using my Windows machine for Eclipse development. Although J2SE 6 (32-bit) resolves the issue, I feel like J2SE 5 is now pointing to the right place.
mlara said this on October 1st, 2009 at 10:58 am
Vogue the next, change it to Glamour if you’re bored…and so on.
movie download free said this on October 5th, 2009 at 6:07 am
I’ve heard there are some wildlife groups trying to get Apple to do more stuff with the actual S.L.’s lol. I don’t know- people are saying it’s good PR for Apple- they should jump on that.
mike said this on November 3rd, 2009 at 3:27 pm