non-random ramble

I have been running v.8 of IntelliJ on os x for a while now, and noticed the odd crash, particularly after waking up the computer.

Thanks to my colleague Tom Czarniecki I have found a solution that appears to be working.

Some googling turned up very little, but mostly points to the JVM being the problem. I had tried updating the Java installed on os x and setting the JDK to be 1.5 which did seem to improve stability but still crashed.

Tom pointed out that Intellij also has a configuration for the JDK version in its config which I updated to be 1.6+ and then switched my JDK back to 1.6 64bit. That was a week ago and not only have I had no crashes, of course the whole experience is smoother under 1.6! woo hoo!

The trick lies in the file

/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 8.1.3.app/Contents/Info.plist

<key>JVMVersion</key>
<string>1.6*</string>

To Switch JDKs:

/Applications/Utilities/Java/Java Preferences.app

Some other references I found along the way:

http://www.jetbrains.net/devnet/thread/282406

JDK Update:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/javaformacosx105update4.html

To See IntelliJ Log output:

~/Library/Caches/IntelliJIDEA8x/log/

IntelliJ stores its plugins here (Thanks to these guys) :

~/Library/Application Support/IntelliJIDEA80