OSX 10.5 Leopard Warning

[Eric Clayberg]

Preliminary reports indicate that OSX 10.5 Leopard introduces problems with SWT/Swing interoperability within the Eclipse IDE reminiscent of problems that were fixed earlier in 10.4.

Code: Select all

java.lang.InternalError: Can't start the AWT because Java was started on the first thread.  Make sure StartOnFirstThread is not specified in your application's Info.plist or on the command line
   at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1822)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1723)
   at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:822)
   at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:993)
   at sun.security.action.LoadLibraryAction.run(LoadLibraryAction.java:50)

At this point, we don't know if this is caused by a problem in Eclipse, SWT, Java or OSX, but are continuing to research the issue. We will report back here as soon as we have more information.

In the mean time, we strongly recommend that OSX users not upgrade to 10.5 until this issue is resolved. Swing Designer will not work and this problem will likely affect other plugins requiring SWT/Swing interoperability within the Eclipse IDE.

Note that reports in Google's GWT forum indicate that GWT also does not work under 10.5, so GWT Designer will be inoperable as well.

[Eric Clayberg]

Some updated info...

So Long Apple. The Party's Over

Java Code That Explains the 'No Java 6 on Leopard' Reaction

This doesn't look good for Java on 10.5 anytime soon.

[craigp]

I'm getting frequent crashes using SWT Designer in Leopard. I will await your findings with eager anticipation!

[Eric Clayberg]

The latest we have heard is that Apple is working on getting a version of Java 6 released for Leopard. Until then, many Java apps will be broken in OSX. There is nothing we can do at this point except wait. It took Eclipse.org and Apple a long time to get SWT/Swing interoperability working in OSX 10.4. OSX 10.5 is basically a huge regression that reverses all of that work. Test cases that originally failed in 10.4 (and then were fixed) are all failing again. It is quite disappointing for all of us...especially our developers using OSX who have now had to go back to 10.4 just to get their work done.

[darrellberry]

see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=199020

the patched launcher is attached to one of the tracker posts -- install in Eclipse as detailed there and Swing Designer will at least launch in Leopard. I've briefly tried using it and all features seem to work properly -- thanks to Scott at Apple & the Eclipse team for getting this out & tested so quickly

[craigp]

So is the problem, as you see it, that Apple aren't going to fix the SWT incompatibilities introduced in OS X 10.5 / Java 1.5 until they release a Java 1.6 for OS X 10.5?

I'm an avid Apple-follower, and have thoroughly enjoyed using OS X for my Java development work, both writing Swing and Eclipse/SWT applications. I think what surprises me the most is the complete lack of silence from Apple on what they see as the future of Java on OS X.

I can completely understand their reticence to talk about future product releases (the iPhone certainly would not have made the impact it did were it to have been drip-fed to the media and public), but when it comes to low-level developer API and frameworks, there's no glamor or media-hype down here. Adopting their policy of keeping quiet about future releases when it comes to something as critical but low-level as Java support is only going to frustrate and alienate a Java community that decided to give Java on OS X a go.

[Eric Clayberg]

The patch provided here is apparently working for some people...

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=199020

Make sure that you download the latest Swing Designer build as well

[craigp]

Thanks for your reply Eric. I've applied the patch to a 3.3.1.1 build I was using, and Eclipse wouldn't start up.

"The Eclipse executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared library" - whether I have the 'eclipse_1104c.so' patch in the appropriate place on its own replacing the existing file, or alongside it. Most odd.

Also, its the SWT Designer I'm experiencing the crashing while using.

[Eric Clayberg]

Beyond following that Bugzilla thread and seeing that this patch was made available and worked for some people, I don't know anything about it.

I would suggest posting comments to that Bugzilla thread. Maybe that patch and/or Eclipse needs to be configured in some special way.

[craigp]

FYI, The crashed that I reported, has now been fixed in the nightly builds of Eclipse 3.4. You can get hold of them from here:

http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/

Make sure you get build N20071112 or newer.

I'm pushing SWT Designer and Leopard quite hard, and I've had stability on-par with Tiger with these nightly builds. The IBM/Eclipse guys really patched the bugs introduced in Leopard very quickly!

[Eric Clayberg]

That is very good news. Hopefully, those fixes will make it into 3.3.2 as well.

[Eric Clayberg]

That is very good news. Hopefully, those fixes will make it into 3.3.2 as well.