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Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2015 8:01 am
by bobluck
Will not launch on Yosemite. The Icon appears in the Dock, but nothing after that.

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2015 8:16 am
by jimr
I have heard from other Yosemite users that this works for them so we should be able to get it going. Mac security with Java apps is a bit of a pain these days so it may require some reconfiguration.

Here are a few questions:

1) If you right-click (or equivalent) on the planner icon, what is the default application tied to the shortcut?

2) What version of Java do you have installed on your mac?

3) What steps did you follow to download/install the planner? Did you use the .jnlp file or are you using the .jar file?

It might be necessary to change your mac security permissions to get the planner to launch.

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 1:28 pm
by beach58
The OP did not reply, but perahaps the behavior I am seeing form my mac will shed some light,

While I can run FRP on a Macbook pro running OSX 10.10.5 (Yosemite), it typically takes 2-5 tries before the FRP window appears. Updating to 4.2.2 changed nothing. I believe this started when I updated to Yosemite in the Spring, but can't be certain.

In regard to security settings, my mac is set to only run apps from the "Mac App Store or identified developers" (FRP is neither), so the 4.2.2 update initially would not run. The mac provided guidance on how to create an exception (open FRP by <CRTL>-click on its icon), so that hurdle is easily cleared.

The behavior is as follows...
Double clicking on FRP.JRE results in java starting and the program FRPMain running. I can see it in the top menu bar, however, the FRP window does not open. It typically takes three or more tries before the license window appears. There is a 3-5 second delay before it appears, so you need to be patient. Subsequent runs open on the first attempt, but reverts to the original behavior after the mac goes to sleep or is restarted. I see the same behavior when running FRP via the .jnlp file.

Answering your earlier questions
1) If you right-click (or equivalent) on the planner icon, what is the default application tied to the shortcut?
Right clicking (two finger click on a mac) on FRP.JRE shows that it opens using "Jar Launcher 15.0.0"

2) What version of Java do you have installed on your mac?
Java is current i.e. Java 8 Update 60.

3) What steps did you follow to download/install the planner? Did you use the .jnlp file or are you using the .jar file?
I am using the jar file, FRP.JRE as recieved in the .zip download of 4.2.2.

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 2:52 pm
by jimr
First, thanks beach58 for that very detailed reply. Providing a good experience for mac users has become an ever increasing challenge, but I'm game to keep trying as long as users keep feeding me information.

It's always possible that there's some long latent bug in my code causing these new startup issues. I recently found a problem launching a .jnlp on Linux through IcedTea's webstart, but that was really a bug in webstart (incorrectly initialized variable). I was able to fix the problem on my end by reworking some startup code to do an explicit check for the bad value. Perhaps there's something like that happening with Java's WebStart on macs that only shows up in this latest version. It definitely doesn't happen on Windows or Linux as best as I can tell.

One thing that might help is if someone with a mac could enable the Java Console, along with checking all the debug/logging flags in the Java Control Panel. With some luck, this could provide some insight as to why the planner isn't launching.

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 5:30 pm
by beach58
Apologies for the delay. It took me a little while to figure out the JAVA console, but once past that, this is what I found.

The JAVA console provides the below text in blue. Unfortunately none of the debug features ("dump thread list", etc) function when the FRP window fails to appear. I can, however, obtain output when the FRP window successfully appears (typically after 2-4 launch attempts).

I don't know if this would be helpful, but in cases where the FRP window does not open, and I "force quit" FRP, my Mac asks if I want to send a debug file (not JAVA) to Apple. I can capture that file.

The output from the JAVA console and the Mac debug file are both pretty sizable, so maybe it makes more sense to do this off line.

Java Web Start 11.60.2.27
Using JRE version 1.8.0_60-b27 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM User home directory = /Users/<username>
----------------------------------------------------
c: clear console window
f: finalize objects on finalization queue
g: garbage collect
h: display this help message
m: print memory usage
o: trigger logging
p: reload proxy configuration
q: hide console
r: reload policy configuration
s: dump system and deployment properties
t: dump thread list
v: dump thread stack
0-5: set trace level to <n>

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:27 pm
by jimr
Thanks for the extra info it's helpful. Based on what you've described it sounds like the Java launcher is hanging when it tries to start my program. The console getting frozen isn't something that my code should be able to cause, even if it was misbehaving badly. I'm going to try googling a bit on this. Since any dump file would be a dump of the Java launcher itself, I wouldn't be able to do very much with that, so there's no need to send that.

If you'd rather move this discussion to email, I'm at info@flexibleRetirementPlanner.com, but posting here is fine also. (fyi - I edited your apple username out of the java console text above just in case that was your real name).

One more question - In your post above, you mentioned you're launching with frp.jre, but I'm assuming you meant to say frp.jar. The zip doesn't contain a file called frp.jre as far as I know. Is that correct?

Thanks again for the help,

Jim

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:29 pm
by beach58
Yes, that was a typo. Meant to type ".jar". And thanks for the edit.

Just to be clear, for purposes of using the JAVA console I launch FRP via the .jnlp file. The JAVA console does not appear when launching FRP with the .jar file.

Also, I do not have to "force quit" while waiting for the FRP window to open. A normal quit works fine. It's when I try to do anything else while waiting for the window to open that FRP locks hard, necessitating a "force quit". For example, picking "services" from the pull down menu will lock the program hard, creating a spinning pinwheel (analog is the windows hourglass).

I eventually able get things running after a few tries, so honestly, the behavior is only a minor inconvenience.

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 5:25 pm
by jimr
Thanks again for all the info. I did a bunch of googling and it seems like there may be some issues with Java 7 and Java 8 on Macs. Many people have gotten better results by dropping back to Apple's last Java release which was Java 6. I'm not sure if that would help in this case or if it's worth the effort.

My go forward plan is to get some time on a mac to see if I can reproduce this myself. As I mentioned before, even if the problem is with Java, I may be able to fix it by changing something in my code if I can figure out what's getting messed up.

Jim

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2015 9:27 am
by beach58
Thanks for checking into it.

Re: Problem launching 4.2.2 on Yosemite (mac)

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 6:07 pm
by bobluck
beach58 and jimr,
Thanks for your efforts. I posted my experience in a different section of this board. Sorry I forgot to come back and check this one. This same strange behavior that beach58 describes does continue on El Capitan. Strange, because I do run some other Java apps with none of these issues, but they have been bundled by the developers as native Mac apps. (MoneyDance, and StockMarket Eye are the other java apps) I really love the FRP, but dread having to jump through the hoops when attempting to launch it. Thanks for the app and good luck in tracking this issue down.