Oracle SQL Developer complaining about java version missing

I’m not able to run Oracle SQL Developer on my mac(macOS Big Sur) It complains about the Java Version which is strange, because I have Java 11 installed, installed via HomeBrew, and idea what might be the issue?

Answer

SQL Developer on a Mac will look for a Java JDK Home a la –

Jeffreys-Mini:21.2 thatjeffsmith$ /usr/libexec/java_home
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-14.jdk/Contents/Home

If the answer is anything older than 7, equal to 9 or 10, or just something other than a valid JDK, it won’t start.

8 or 11 are officially supported. I’ve played with 14, 16, and GraalVM 16. Stay away from the GraalVM for SQL Developer today – it’s got issues. The newer Java’s should be OK, although you’ll get a warning about running a version higher than officially supported (8,11).

If you’ve done all of this, and it STILL won’t load. cd to your $HOME. Then go into your .sqldeveloper directory, and look for a a directory of the same name as your SQLDev version.

/Users/thatjeffsmith/.sqldeveloper/21.2.1

In there is a product.conf, find this line, uncomment it, supply full path to the JDK, save it, then start SQLDev.

#
# By default, the product launcher will search for a JDK to use, and if none
# can be found, it will ask for the location of a JDK and store its location
# in this file. If a particular JDK should be used instead, uncomment the
# line below and set the path to your preferred JDK.
#
# SetJavaHome /path/jdk