How to REINSTALL Java 6 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

java macos osx-snow-leopard system-restore
Genericrich picture Genericrich · Nov 6, 2009 · Viewed 26.2k times · Source

OK, I am idiot and messed with my Java install trying to get Resin to work.

Now, things are broken. I figured I could just reinstall the developer tools that came with my new Mac (brand new 13" MacBook Pro) and that would take care of it.

Alas, I was wrong. Snow Leopard comes with Java 6 JRE and JDK but as far as I can tell YOU CANNOT EVER REINSTALL just Java, you have to reinstall the OS.

Do any Gurus on S.O. know if this is the case or, better yet, what the steps are to reinstall Java 6 back to the factory settings without reinstalling the OS?

Answer

Tiago Espinha picture Tiago Espinha · Nov 3, 2012

This answer comes 3 years late and is most likely useless for the original poster. I will, however, leave it here for future reference.

When this happens, you don't have to reinstall the whole OS thanks to a very neat tool called Pacifist. Pacifist allows you to reinstall pkg files regardless of any OS restrictions. This means that if you download the latest Java for OSX .dmg file and use Pacifist to install it, all the Java files will be overwritten and everything will be back to a working state.

I had a similar problem and this did it for me.

You can find Pacifist here: http://www.charlessoft.com/

Please note: it's a commercial application (shareware for $20) and I am in no way affiliated with it or its developers. You can also "try it out" for free.

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