RPTools.net

I'm running OSX 10.6.8 on an imac and installed a flash update yesterday foolishly. In the middle of a fairly large project, too. Went back and re installed the java 1.6 dmg, no dice. Adobe updater in system preferences says I'm up to date, as does the system updater itself. As a theatrical sound designer who relies heavily on real time data throughput I hesitate to tweak around my system more than that... (this is why I haven't gone to Lion yet)....

I'm outa luck until we get a token tool for java 7?

Any help would be..... most helpful....



TIA!

You did not say HOW TT is not working. Is there any "behaviour" you could tell us?

Java1.6 "could" be have been re-installed "wrong" or TT chooses another installed version of java instead. That could be changed (by changing the starting script)

But I'm not an expert with all of this so I hope someone will chime in.

It boots, but then the window size is abnormally small, I have to drag the corner if I want to see the content; it's about half the "normal" size. So I see just the area to drag the graphics to and a bit of the window to scroll down/select token borders. Then if I click on any of the buttons, or attempt to drag and drop a graphic, it freezes. Which is to say, it doesn't recognize a button click in the first place.... The force quit window doesn't show token tool as not responding until I attempt to interact with it, though. After such an attempt, it usually does show as not responding.

So, obviously, error city from the word go. No error dialog pops up.

Worked fine day before yesterday. The only change to my system that I'm aware of was the flash update. WAH.

(Edit: Oops. I didn't catch the word "Adobe". I thought he was referring to a flash update of the operating system! I've deleted the rest of my post, as yorick covers the situation quite nicely.)

To state the obvious: Token Tool doesn't use Flash, it uses Java.

I tested Token Tool on Win8 with Java 7u25, and it works. So we know Token Tool and Java 7 go together well. Do you know which version of Java the updater installed on your OSX?

It's quite possible that the OSX Java has issues with UI elements in Token Tool that Windows Java doesn't have. In theory, Java is cross-platform; in practice, it mostly is.

You could run Token Tool in a Linux or Windows VM on OSX. Terribly convoluted way to do things, but at least you'll have Token Tool again.

I did a Java update yesterday, on OS 10.8 and I was even thinking as I did it, "I shouldn't be doing this" but I did it anyway. After reading this I opened TokenTool and got this:

So I'm missing a few things and I can pretty much guarantee it was the Java update. Mac users beware.

And trust your intuition when it says, "This isn't the Java update you're looking for"

cheers,
Meshon

Edit: Just an update. It seem that the application is not refreshing. However, when I go to the TokenTool menu and select "Services" the app refreshes. So if I really want to use it I sort of can but I have to go to the menu and fiddle around after each step.

If you can start up MapTool and use the Help > Gather Debug Information... option I'd be happy to look into this. AFAIK TokenTool hasn't been touched in years and there could easily be some dependency...

(Hm. In fact, I think the last time I looked at it I couldn't find a way to build it even. But that was a long time ago and I was pretty green at the time. )

Edit: Just tried it here and it works fine. OSX 10.8.4 (latest update as of right now), Java 1.7.0_21 from Oracle:

Thanks Az! After your post I thought to myself, "If Az has Java 7 then so can I!" TokenTool now works fine, and I don't think I broke MapTool either.

Java 7 update 25 on 10.8.4
wish I had fancy looking code like Az

cheers,
Meshon

Hmmm well that DOES look a lot like the screen I got. I doubt I could manually refresh though. Won't be able to do anything until I get the imac back from the theatre on sunday in any event.

I have an older laptop that still runs tokentool fine. I suspect that if I step up to 10.8 for the imac I'll have to buy newer versions of all kinds of wares I depend on, so I'm a bit leery....

Do you all think I should try to learn how to install java 1.7 in the hope this would be ok with 10.6.8? Or punt, and just use my laptop for token creation?

Well, now, I could've sworn I didn't see anything else in the updater box checked.... and after the security scare with Flash a year or so ago I never use the updater for Flash anyway. I get the dialog for Flash update, select "NO", close it, then go to preferences and check from there to go to Adobe myself to see.

But I'm not above stupid mistakes, and the screen I got looks a lot like the one previously posted. If I did indeed update java as well as Flash, then I was unaware of it it, so no... I don't really know which version. I do know I went and installed 1.6 after the fact as best I knew how (by going to Apple and finding that particular update).... but suspiciously when I again checked for new software it said my system was up to date. For 10.6.8. Under About This Mac --> more info--> frameworks (and extensions) it looks like 1.6 to my untrained eyes.

So, hmmm.

Thanks, tho

--Headlinzman

yorick wrote:To state the obvious: Token Tool doesn't use Flash, it uses Java.

I tested Token Tool on Win8 with Java 7u25, and it works. So we know Token Tool and Java 7 go together well. Do you know which version of Java the updater installed on your OSX?

It's quite possible that the OSX Java has issues with UI elements in Token Tool that Windows Java doesn't have. In theory, Java is cross-platform; in practice, it mostly is.

You could run Token Tool in a Linux or Windows VM on OSX. Terribly convoluted way to do things, but at least you'll have Token Tool again.

meshon wrote:Java 7 update 25 on 10.8.4

Yeah, I need to do the pl25 update. Maybe before I get on the plane tomorrow...

wish I had fancy looking code like Az

Heh, not sure what that means, but "thanks".

Headlinzman wrote:Do you all think I should try to learn how to install java 1.7 in the hope this would be ok with 10.6.8? Or punt, and just use my laptop for token creation?

If you do the Apple updates and it works, then I wouldn't think about switching to J7 just yet. In fact, you might not be able to. I seem to recall that 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was only 32-bit, that 10.7 (Lion) was both 32 and 64, and that 10.8 (Mtn Lion) is now 64-bit only. Since Oracle provides Java for Mtn Lion, it's only 64-bit and you probably can't get a Java 7 for anything older. But I don't know that for sure; this is all "IIRC".

I did read that the OpenJDK now has a super-clean compile on OSX. For the longest time, downloading the source code and building it produced all kinds of errors that had to be fixed -- it was a pain to do. But even if you got the source code, I don't think it would compile on the older versions of the OS since the older operating systems don't have the functions that the newer J7 is going to expect...


And this is why a closed ecosystem is bad for the customer. Whether Apple decides to drop support for Carbon, or Microsoft decides to throw away ATL, the problem for developers is that they need to update in order to write new code and if they do that, they are disincentivized to continue to support older code (good word, eh?). Which in turn means customers need to update regularly...

There are good reasons to update Java, that have nothing to do with whether TokenTool works.

- Java has been the No.1 way people's computers have been infected / taken over, for a few years running. Java was how Apple themselves (the company) were successfully attacked.
- Java 7u25 fixes 37 vulnerabilities that can be remotely exploited and used to take over your machine without any interaction from you (total fixes: 40).
- Java 6 has received these updates as well (6u51), but those updates are not available to the "unwashed masses", only to people with an extended support contract. Everyone else stays on Java 6u45, holes and all.

Java always is a security risk. But: Running a version of Java with widely documented holes, that are fixed in a later version - that's as good as asking for it. It's a great idea to keep the most notorious "vectors" for infection - those being Java, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader - scrupulously up to date.

One way to mitigate is to turn off all Java support in the browser. Means no RPGTableOnline and no Maptool WebStart, but it's an option, as well.

Personally, I moved to Java 7 and Maptool b89.

The attack vectors that are publicized so much are the one regarding applets and the fact that the sandbox isn't completely sealed. This is the same issue that ActiveX has on Windows platforms and is why IE is such a "vulnerability attractor" (if there is such a thing).

The RPTools applications have never run as applets. At least, not as distributed by us. I suppose someone could download the source and change it...

Standalone Java-based applications can have their own vulnerabilities, and there can be vulnerabilities in the Java runtime itself. Updating applications when there are security fixes is always a good idea. IMO too many people have the "it isn't broke so I won't fix it" attitude. That's fine as long as you understand that something can be broken without you knowing that it's broken. And therein lies the problem.

OSX has Gatekeeper (I think just since 10.8 though), which by default will not allow Java apps to run unless they are signed by Apple or an Apple developer (someone who has paid $99 to get a developer id). I leave that feature turned on for my own desktop but I find I sometimes have to turn it off temporarily if I've downloaded binaries from somewhere and want to run them. (Doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I prefer source code in most cases. )

Anyway, I'm not advocating that people ignore a security update. PLEASE install all updates that are security related!

But the reality is that people running Java 6 and moving to Java 7 might find that some applications don't work correctly any more. For most users, applications are the most important thing on the machine -- heck, it's why they have a computer at all! So if they stop working, what good is the machine?

Hence my suggestion, "If you do the Apple updates and it works, then I wouldn't think about switching to J7 just yet."

I had a problem recently when I installed the Java 8 beta on my laptop. It was a royal pain to uninstall it (it was causing build problems in Eclipse) and Oracle doesn't have a supported uninstaller for OSX. I will NOT make that mistake again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, ...

Thanks everyone, I'm truly gratified to get so much response so quickly, at the least. I'm afraid I'm no developer, but from where I sit the biggest "vulnerability attractor" is the act of taking the machine online in the first place. Most people don't have much of an option as regards that, but in my case...

The imac is primarily a sound computer for cueing events in performance, and as such I rent it out quite a bit to venues in the area. Almost none of 'em have online access from the booth. And I know the personnel involved pretty well. So while this may seem insecure on the surface, it is in fact a lot more bullet proof than the situation most people face.

I'll investigate whether Lion has matured enough for my wares: a lot of sequencing and virtual sampling/synthesis. Probably has; it's been a while since I looked. At last check the deal breaker for me was the way they emasculated support for Final Cut when they finally "updated" it from v7, about the time Lion came out.

So the loss of token tool in this context isn't so bad. I tell you though: without maptools itself I'd be a basket case.

Thought I'd better speak up in forum too. So there.

Ah yes, Final Cut. There's been a lot of chatter about that. I'm not much of an audiophile or artist of any type, but it would be kind of hard to stay up with Apple news and not know about that. It's not as bad as Adobe taking their Creative Suite entirely cloud- and subscription-based! That is going to make or break them, I think.

If you own virtualization software (VMware Fusion costs $$ but VirtualBox is free) you could always try out your changes in a virtual machine. The nice thing about that is if it doesn't work you just delete the virtual machine and your box is exactly the same as it started. I can't imagine ever working on a computer again without some kind of virtualization capability...