Datastax DevCenter freezes on startup

Question

Just installed (copied over the app from the downloaded dmg) DevCenter 1.6 on my mac, running macOs Sierra 10.12.6 with jdk 8u152 installed. The application loads a UI (splash screen then a couple of checkboxes in a window for getting started) but the UI is frozen (with the splash screen still there). No response to mouse clicks or keyboard. Also can't click on the app name in the menu bar. The app however is not labeled "Not responding" by activity monitor.

So far I've tried -

1. Looking at the logs both in the app folder and in ~/.devcenter. Nothing fishy there
2. Running the app from a different user account - same issue there
3. Deleting all datastax and devcenter related files (searched by name) on my machine and fresh start - still the same issue

any ideas what I could do here?

I was running DevCenter on a previous mac with the same config / os version but a slightly older JDK, never had issues then.

Answer 1

Without downgrade the Java version

Scenario

I couldn't create any connection and press buttons and everything was frozen; Changing the swt plugin in the DevCenter plugin folder worked. This was my configuration:

• DevCenter version DevCenter-1.6.0-macosx-x86_64
• Mac OSX version 10.14.6
• JDK Version jdk1.8.0_231.jdk

Steps to fix it

1. From here download the version 3.108.0. (This version works for me)
2. Rename the file downloaded as swt.jar (short name)
3. [Optionally] create a backup of the current swt plugin jar of the DevCenter

cp DevCenter/DevCenter.app/plugins/org.eclipse.swt.cocoa.macosx.x86_64_3.103.2.v20150203-1351.jar ~/Desktop

4. Replace the plugin with the swt.jar downloaded

mv swt.jar DevCenter/DevCenter.app/plugins/org.eclipse.swt.cocoa.macosx.x86_64_3.103.2.v20150203-1351.jar

5. Startup DevCenter

Finally it worked

Answer 2

On OSX, you can specify which version of Java DevCenter uses so that you do not need to downgrade your global Java version.

• Right-click on Devcenter.app
• Click "show package contents"
• Open Contents/info.plist
• At the bottom of the file, there's an Eclipse key with lines commented out explaining how to specify the version of Java. Uncomment the line and specify the version of Java that you want DevCenter to use.
• Save & Re-launch DevCenter

The updated info.plist file should look something like this:

<key>Eclipse</key>

    <array>
            <string>-vm</string><string>/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java</string>
    </array>

Answer 3

I reached out to someone at Datastax and learnt that complaints have surfaced about this behavior when using DevCenter with jdk 8u152.

For now, I've downgraded to jdk 8u151 and that fixes the issue.