Installing Java 8 on OS X 10.10 Yosimite

So I’ve been running OS X 10.10 for a while and tonight decided I’d try to install the Java 8 JDK (JDK8u05) and have a play for a project I’ve been messing around with. Unfortunately I got this:

A quick google search and the best I could come up with was to install the latest beta of OpenJDK, which apparently fixes the problem. I didn’t really want a beta version of the JDK so I had a dig around in the pkg to see if I could force the installations.

The checks for versions are just in a text file within the package, so it’s not hard to remove the check and force the installation.

First expand the pkg into a directory so you can get at the contents:

$ pkgutil --expand JDK\ 8\ Update\ 05.pkg JDK8

This creates a new folder called JDK8, in there you’ll find a file called Distribution. Open it in your favourite text editor. At about line 36 you’ll find the following code:

```js linenos:true start:36 // Check is current MAC OS X version less than supportedVersion function checkForMacOSX(supportedVersion) { try { // Get current ProductVersion var tProductVersion = system.version.ProductVersion; // Get current ProductName var tProductName = system.version.ProductName;

    // Check if current version is less than supportedVersion, if yes Set the result type to Fatal, and give correct message to user

    if(tProductVersion < supportedVersion)
    {
        // Set result values
        var osCheckTitle = system.localizedStringWithFormat('OSCHECK_TITLE');
        osCheckTitle = osCheckTitle.replace("%1$@", tProductName);
        osCheckTitle = osCheckTitle.replace("%2$@", supportedVersion);

        var osCheckMessage = system.localizedStringWithFormat('OSCHECK_MESSAGE');
        osCheckMessage = osCheckMessage.replace("%1$@", tProductName);
        osCheckMessage = osCheckMessage.replace("%2$@", tProductVersion);
        osCheckMessage = osCheckMessage.replace("%3$@", supportedVersion);

        my.result.title = osCheckTitle;
        my.result.message = osCheckMessage;
        my.result.type = 'Fatal';
    }
} catch (e) {
    // an exception just occurred
    return (false);
}
// return true
return (true); } ```

The error happens on line 45 above, the version check is comparing strings and failing because 10.10 is less than 10.7 lexicographically. If I was fixing the pkg I would rewrite the function to properly check, but I’m not and I just want the JDK to install. So I took everything out except the final return(true); so that the whole method looks like this:

js start:36 // Check is current MAC OS X version less than supportedVersion function checkForMacOSX(supportedVersion) { // return true return (true); }

Finally package it back up with the pkgutils command and the check won’t fail and Java 8 will install.

$ pkgutil --flatten JDK8 JDK8.pkg

Double click the new pkg and the installer will run without the error message.

All done, Java 8 JDK installed!