Installer expects Java 6

Hello,

I am trying to install Marvin Sketch on a MacBook Pro with OS 10.8.4 and Java 7 installed. The installer for Marvin expects Java 6 and will not complete the installation. How do I get Marvin installed using Java 7?

Thanks.

Hi!

Thank you for reporting it. I tried to reproduce your problem in OS X 10.8.4 but so far I could not force the installer to use Java 7. Somehow it always finds the default Java 6 on the system and uses it instead. But I will keep trying.

Are there any special steps that you followed to make the installer use Java 7?

BR,

  Akos

Hello,

I have not been able to get the Marvn installer to use Java 7, which is why I cannot get Marvin to work.

Hopefully someone else will be able to get Java7 to work with Marvin!

Hello!

Meanwhile I could reproduce the problem on a fresh OS X VM. If there is no Java 6 SE installed every time an application tries to call some java program a popup window comes up and tells that Java SE 6 is needed. So basically it is not the Marvinbeans installer that insist to have Java 6 installed. Rather, Java 6 SE is the latest Java version supported by Apple.

The OS X environment with Java 7 is somehow different compared to an environment with Java 6. But I still do not find what the difference is and what to set to make our installer see and use the Java 7 environment.

I will come back when I have any kind of solution. If you need to run the installer anyway, consider using it with Java 6 SE, which is further supported by Apple and its current version 6u51 is already newer than the latest public version 6u45.

BR,
  Akos

Hello,

Unfortunately I am not able to use Java 6 as the PowerSchool applications that my school uses for attendance and grades requires Java 7. This means that I cannot downgrade from Java 7 to Java 6.

I look forward to the solution to this problem!

Hi David!

The cause of the problem is the installer creator software (install4j) that we use to build our product installers (like the Marvinbeans DMG). For some reason it implicitly requires Java 6. Java 7 is supposed to be backward compatible with Java 6, but in this specific case it seems to be not true. Unfortunately this kind of fault is not something that we can fix quickly. We have to contact the company that develops install4j and ask for their support and also upgrade our build processes to integrate their fix while still remaining compatible with the Java 6 world.

I need to ask for your patience on this case. Meanwhile consider installing the Apple-supported Java 6 SE. Installing it is not really a downgrade because Java 6 and 7 can live side by side and Java 7 will still be available on your system. Although having both of them may need some more configurations.

I'm sorry for not being able to provide you with a quick fix or workaround. Since it will be an official bug fix please check on our upcoming product releases.

Thank you for reporting this issue.

Best Regards,
  Akos

Hello Again,

A quick note to say that Marvin 6.1 still expects Java 6 to be present and thus will not install on my MBP with Java 7. Java 7 is required by several apps. at work that we are required to use so Marvin, alas, will continue to be unusable for me until this installation issue can be fixed.

Peace,

David

Hello David,

Unfortunately we did not managed to fix this issue in 6.1. As my colleague wrote it needs more time.

Thank you,

Gabor

Hello everyone,

apparently this is still an issue. On my Macbook Pro 13' (Mid 2014) with OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.1 (15B42) Marvinsketch will not install unless Java SE 6 runtime is present.

I know that there are workarounds. However, since MarvinSketch is one of the few (perhaps the only?) good solution for drawing chemical structures on a mac without spending several hundred dollars for ChemDraw, many people must be interested in using it. Apple is still selling a lot of hardware, I guess it would be in your interest to get a share of this market. I'd be willing to purchase some of the extra licenses too, but not if I have to use different workarounds for years, leading to unstable performance.

Perhaps you re-evaluate the priority of this issue at some point. But perhaps I'm also wrong and should just install a virtual windows on my mac. 

Kind regards,

Daniel 

Same issue here. I'm running OS X 10.11.2 on my Mac and the installer asks me to install Java 6. I'm currently running Java 8.

I understand that installing Java 6 from Apple solves the issue. But such an old Java version is a huge security issue. Plus, Apple announced that El Capitan will be the last version to support Java 6.

Is there a trick which installs Marvin on a Mac running Java 8?

I am glad to inform you that the new installers solved this issue.

Best regards,

Efi