Oracle: E-Business Suite users stay on Java 6 for now

Oracle issued an urgent bulletin yesterday afternoon warning Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) users to stay on Java 6 as Java 7 is not yet certified in EBS.

“Until EBS is certified with (Java Runtime Engine) JRE 7, EBS users should not rely on the windows auto-update mechanism for their client machines and should manually keep the JRE up to date with the latest versions of 6 on an ongoing basis,” wrote Steven Chan, Oracle senior applications director.

Client desktops will automatically update to JRE 7 unless EBS administrators disable the option. Chan’s blog details how to revert back to JRE 6 if that happens, mainly by uninstalling JRE 7 and re-installing JRE 6. EBS customers should be running JRE 1.6, otherwise known as JRE 6, on their Windows end-user desktops, and Java Development Kit (JDK) 6 on their EBS servers.

“Our current testing shows that there are known incompatibilities between JRE 1.7 and the Forms-invocation process in EBS environments,” the blog reads.

The Oracle Support note is even more direct: ” At time of this announcement, Oracle Forms is not compatible with JRE 7. JRE 7 has not been certified with Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle E-Business Suite functionality based on Forms — e.g. Financials — will stop working if you upgrade to JRE 7.”

The support note said this automatic update to Java 7 could happen as early as July 3, thus the reason for the urgent bulletin.

Chan wrote that Oracle plans on certifying JRE 7 on EBS, but provided no timetable as to when that would happen.