Having problems with Chrome/Chromium and Java

[jollyjack]

I think I must be doing something stupid, because I've fixed this problem before. Old age must be creeping up....

I use Kubuntu 14.04 (64bit) and Chrome as a browser - all up to date.

On one website I go to, it tells me that, to view its images, I need Java (TM) and points me to a plug-in to install. This turns out to be the official Java site, offering Java-7 (update 60).

But, I already have that. According to "sudo update-alternatives --config java", I have openjre7, Java-7 and Java-8 - current choice is openjre. I tried changing current choice to java7, and the website still didn't work. I even tried the Java test page (javatester.org) - it can't find ANY java....

Please help a bewildered old gentleman.

Thanks

[Snowhog]

Search our forum for pepperflash.

[jollyjack]

Snowhog, now you've confused me (more).

Pepperflash is for Flash. Do I need it for Java? And, if I do, it's for Chromium - Chrome already already has Pepper, and I've been using Chrome (only tried Chromium in case i was missing something) and the Java doesn't work for me.

??

[Snowhog]

Sorry! Still 'early' in the morning -- haven't had my full ration of coffee yet.

[NickStone]

Do you have icedtea-plugin installed?

[jollyjack]

Yes.

[NickStone]

If your sure you have Java runtime environment installed (whether from Oracle or openjdk) then I can only assume that in Chrome it is disabled. I don't use Chrome myself so I cannot help you to enable Java in Chrome but if you search preferences within Chrome you should see an option to enable Java.

[NickStone]

If you type in the following command

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

What does it do?
Does it inform it's already installed or ask you to confirm installation?

[jollyjack]

Hi NickStone,

It gives me this:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
openjdk-7-jre is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Cheers

Just to check what Java I have, I ran

sudo update-alternatives --config java

It gives me

Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java 1071 auto mode
1 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java 1071 manual mode
2 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/bin/java 5 manual mode
3 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java 4 manual mode

Cheers

[jollyjack]

Hi NickStone,

I've been into Chrome Settings, and can't find any Java option...

Cheers

[Goeroeboeroe]

Java on Linux has been disabled in Google Chrome:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/47059...ogle-chrome-35

[jollyjack]

Java on Linux has been disabled in Google Chrome:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/47059...ogle-chrome-35

Goeroeboeroe, thanks a million.

That link explained why the latest Chrome doesn't work with Java, AND then told me how to fix it (downgrade to the previous version). I did all that and it works perfectly.

Thanks

[Goeroeboeroe]

Glad it helped you.
To prevent misunderstandings: Java is dropped because of the architecture of the plugin (I don't understand what I just wrote, but that's the reason, they say). Other platforms like Windows will follow soon, so it's not something 'against' Linux. Because of technical reasons Linux was the first platform.

[Goeroeboeroe]

In this thread there's a long discussion about this: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium...ev/xEbgvWE7wMk
There's a warning against downgrading to an earlier version of Chrome (that's the advice askubuntu gives).
This change also affects things like flash on chromium, vmware, etc. There's a whole list of problems people have in that thread.