7u9 jnlp very touchy with vm args

[Jeff Palmer]

Well, I got around to agreeing to installing the Java SE 6 supposedly required to run a webstart 7 app from an icon.  Was thinking it was going to be some bizarre situation of then having to reinstall Java 7.  Wrong, worse.  Now the Icon click just terminates after changing the menu briefly.  No Traces, logs, or console entries.

Can still run from cache viewer (create icon button disabled though) & from Safari.  I am kind of underwhelmed.  This looks more like dis-intergration than integration.  I think anyone assuming things are going to work for customers with brand new machines might be wrong, unless the some exact unknown procedure is followed.

After my Lion rebuild, I just went to the Oracle verify page, http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp  .  Clicked the "Verify Java Version" button, and after I got tired of waiting to be told I did not have it, clicked on a nearby "download" link.  If someone was using that Java Script launcher script for the html button,  that is probably where the customers will end up too.  

I dumped the java script method due to many issues with different browsers on Windows.  I put out a link to the verifier, and link directly to the JNLP.  If this was a PDF, you link it & add a link to get Acrobat.  Almost the same here.

I do not have time to really deal with this right now.  I will open a bug, but there will not be anything which is not here.

Thanks,

Jeff

On Oct 25, 2012, at 3:00 PM, macosx-port-dev-request at openjdk.java.net wrote:

> From: Igor Nekrestyanov <igor.nekrestyanov at oracle.com>
> Subject: Re: 7u9 jnlp very touchy with vm args
> Date: October 24, 2012 6:09:26 PM EDT
> To: Jeff Palmer <jcpalmer at rochester.rr.com>
> Cc: macosx-port-dev at openjdk.java.net
> 
> 
> I think the reason of this behavior (with unsupported option) is that if you try to pass unsupported arg to java launcher then jvm will simply exit with error.
> javaws or plugin spawns new JVM and it does not really know why that other process exits (or crash).
> 
> I totally agree it is not developer friendly though. Please file your suggestions/ideas as bugs/JIRA issues.
> This is first step to make them fixed.
> 
> Your second problem sounds like some incompatibility between Apple helper tools and Oracle JRE.
> Perhaps Scott or someone from install team can comment on this,
> 
> -igor
> 
> On 10/24/12 2:52 PM, Jeff Palmer wrote:
>> I have isolated my problem,&  I think the reason might help explain some other messages on the other list.  I have reviewed the allowable vm args in JNLPs as published:
>> 
>> http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/javaws/developersguide/syntax.html#resources
>> 
>> I was not fully compliant, as I was referencing the argument,  -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC.
>> 
>> This is a working JNLP snippet from the previous release (7u8 I think):
>>   <resources>
>>       <j2se
>>           version="1.7+"
>>           java-vm-args="-Xmx200m XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC"
>>       />
>>       <jar href="my-app.jar"  />
>>   </resources>
>> 
>>   <resources os="Mac">
>>       <j2se
>>           version="1.6+"
>>           java-vm-args="-Xmx200m XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true"
>>       />
>>   </resources>
>> 
>> Take out the unsupported argument in both places, and it now works.  7u9 does tolerate the GC arg on Windows still.
>> 
>> This is clearly not a bug.  I think a little better could be done on providing feed though.  The program just ENDS.  No warning, failure message, traces, nothing.  This makes it hard to find.
>> 
>> This one took a day.  I was concerned my Lion partition had a bunch of ea stuff which I had tinkered with&  was not stock enough anyway,  so the time to blow it away&  rebuilding it was still worth it.
>> 
>> Finally, after I re-installed, I just went to the Oracle site and installed the JRE.  In Safari, specifying a jnlp, downloads&  starts it.  If you click on the desktop icon for subsequent runs you get message box from Software Update:
>> 	"To open "BLAH,BLAH, BLAH" you need a Java SE 6 runtime.  Would you like to install one now?"
>> 
>> No, I do not need this.  This message did NOT come up because I have the 2 j2se tags.  I tried when there was only 1.
>> 
>> If I actually followed through and did that, it would not even use it.  (guess I have to though, starting though cache viewer is a pain).  The test is wrong.  It should be testing for the Oracle plugin installed.
>