I’m experiencing serious memory usage and elevated GC’ing on Mac after updating to the latest version of Java 1.6.0_29. Prior to this update I had no problems with the stability of IntelliJ on the Mac. In fact it was the stablest version I’d used, rock solid. However, after this latest update I have been experiencing extreme lag due to excessive GC’ing. Eventually it has to be restarted to clear out the memory. I’d like to roll back to a prior version. I tried looking in the Java Preferences panel, but the only version available is 1.6.0_29. All my previous versions are missing.
There has been some evidence and bugs filed against Java 1.6.0_29, but I’d like to rollback given it’ll take Apple months to release a new version. And I’m concerned Apple won’t fix it seeing as this was the last scheduled release of Apple supported Java on the Mac.
http://www.concurrentaffair.org/2011/11/14/drjava-definitionspanememoryleaktest-fails-on-mac/
So how do I roll back to a prior version of Java on Mac?
In this post it is described how to download, unpack and install an older version of java. It is for java 5 but should work with any version.
I think this is the previous version but I haven’t tried it.
https://developer.apple.com/downloads/download.action?path=Java/java_for_mac_os_x_10.7_developer_package/javadeveloper_for_mac_os_x_10.7__11a511.dmg. You need to be logged in to fetch it.
Good luck.