IDL 8.8.1 Workbench for Mac on Apple Silicon/M1 platform requires JRE update

Problem

The IDL 8.8.1 Workbench running on macOS 11 Big Sur (or newer versions) with Rosetta 2 on the Apple Silicon / M1 platform may be unstable and crash for some users. This behavior seems to be caused by an incompatibility between the Eclipse used for the IDL 8.8.1 Workbench and AdoptOpenJDK JRE (11.0.11) distributed with IDL 8.8.1 for Mac on this platform.

Solution

To resolve this issue, replace the AdoptOpenJDK JRE shipped with IDL 8.8.1 for Mac with the Azul Zulu OpenJDK JRE 11.0.12+7 (Zulu: 11.50.19 version) which can be found here:

https://cdn.azul.com/zulu/bin/zulu11.50.19-ca-jdk11.0.12-macosx_x64.dmg

Steps:

Requirements - IDL 8.8.1 or ENVI+IDL 5.6.1 should already be installed; Admin privileges may be required to make the following changes.

1) Download and install Azul Zulu OpenJDK JRE 11.0.12+7 (Zulu: 11.50.19 version) from the link above.

2) Using Finder, rename the "jre" folder in your IDL 8.8.1 installation to "jre_orig". The jre folder is located at [INSTALL_DIR]/idl88/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64/jre, for example:

/Applications/harris/idl88/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64/jre

-or-

/Applications/harris/envi56/idl88/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64/jre

3) Locate the "Home" folder from the newly installed JRE installation. By default, it will be located here: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/zulu-11.jdk/Contents/Home. Copy this "Home" folder into your IDL installation here: [INSTALL_DIR]/idl88/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64

4) Rename the newly pasted "Home" folder to "jre".

 

Created 8.23.2021 by JU, reviewed by BD