I had Mathematica 8 on a MacBook Pro running Mavericks. I just upgraded to Yosemite, and when I try to run Mma I’m told that I need to install the legacy Java SE 6. Apparently, I had recently upgraded Java to version 7 on that laptop and I’m not sure I had run Mathematica after that-- so it might be the Java after all. Java updates are motivated in part by security concerns, so going back to Java 6 doesn’t seem like a good idea. Is there any hope of getting value out of the version 8?
You can have several versions of Java installed at the same time. If you install Apple’s Java 6, as well as Java from Oracle, only Oracle’s Java will be used for browser plugins, so there should be no security concerns.
Most Java based applications on OS X will only work with Apple’s Java 6 distribution.
Thanks, Szabolcs. Does my v10 on my iMac run because it doesn’t depend on Java and v8 does?
Mathematica 10 on Macintosh comes with a Java runtime included. Mathematica 8 expected the Mac to have Java.
BTW, I haven’t tried Mathematica 8 on Yosemite yet, but I’ll try later today if it works with Java 6 installed and will let you know in a few hours. We updated one machine at the office to Yosemite and it happens to still have Mathematica 8 installed.
Thanks to you both.
I just tried this. After installing Java 6 from Apple, Mathematica 8.0.4 appears to work fine on Yosemite. I did not test more fragile features such as OpenCLLink though …
Works for me now. Thanks again!