MacOS – Re-Enable Apple Java 6 SE from Command Line

javamacos

So, I broke Java Preferences.app. I'm on Mountain Lion. I had Java 6 SE (the Apple-distributed JDK/JRE) and Oracle's Java 7u10 preview. Trying to get a stub app to launch with Java 7, I unchecked the Java 6 SE checkboxes in Java Preferences.app. Now not only will my stub app not launch, but Java Preferences.app won't launch (it says there's no valid JRE 1.4+ available). I understand this is probably because Apple's Java launcher stub is not compatible with 7u10 — not sure how to manually re-enable SE 6, though.

Best Answer

Two things are needed worst case (and assuming you are still on 10.6 Snow Leopard):

Re-download the SE 6 and install it
Manually enable browser plug in if you care to have that functionality:

 ln -sf /System/Library/Java/Support/Deploy.bundle/Contents/Resources/JavaPlugin2_NPAPI.plugin "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin"
 ln -sf /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Commands/javaws /usr/bin/javaws

There is great coverage of the how and why I came up with these steps from Rich Trouton's blog:

Apple also has similar steps in their KB article about the move from SE 6 to 7 here:

Java for OS X 2012-006: How to re-enable the Apple-provided Java SE 6 applet plug-in and Web Start functionality

Related Solutions

Run java bundled in .app from command-line

To switch to another JVM, try to modify the JAVA_HOME and PATH shell environment variable in ~/.profile.

# in ~/.profile
# switch to another JVM (here, 1.7)
unset JAVA_HOME PATH
export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home -F --version 1.7 2>/dev/null)"
export PATH="${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${PATH}"

# general info on Java preferences
open -a 'Java Preferences'

MacOS – Does Mountain lion download Apple’s JDK or the OpenJDK when attempting to load a Java app

It prompts you (just tried to open Aptana). I let it install and

java -version

gives

java version "1.6.0_33"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_33-b03-424-11M3720)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.8-b03-424, mixed mode)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Run java bundled in .app from command-line

MacOS – Does Mountain lion download Apple’s JDK or the OpenJDK when attempting to load a Java app

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