Error after upgrading to JDK 8 on MAC

Question

After upgrading to JDK 8 on Mac, I get the following error when I try and check the java version. Can anyone help me sort it out?

MAC30880443:Versions t821714$ java -version
Error occurred during initialization of VM
java/lang/ClassNotFoundException: error in opening JAR file <Zip file open error> /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_75.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/endorsed/jaxb-api-2.2.12.jar

Answer 1

It would appear as if the new JDK got installed, however your JAVA_HOME environmental variable appears to be either unset, or still set to use JDK 7.

To check its current value, you can execute echo $JAVA_HOME

To update the value for your current terminal session, you can execute export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_40.jdk/Contents/Home.

If you want the above snippet to run every time you start a new terminal session, you can enter the following, which will append it to your .profile

echo "export /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_40.jdk/Contents/Home" >> ~/.profile
. ~/.profile

The second line will source that .profile line to load the variables set in it.

Cheers, and happy coding.

Answer 2

Looks like your java PATH is messed up, setting it varies based on OS version so take a look here and make sure it is set properly.

if you are running os 10+ all you have to do is

echo export "JAVA_HOME=\$(/usr/libexec/java_home)" >> ~/.bash_profile

or if you think you know better than apple and are sure your java_home is in the default location, use:

echo "export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_40.jdk/Contents/Home" >> ~/.bash_profile

then do

source ~/.bash_profile

also make sure java 8 is set in the top of your preferences. (Utilities -> Java Preferences -> General). Click and drag it to the top of the list if it is not there, otherwise you might continue to use the older version of java