Minecraft Forums

So, I have not played Minecraft in months. Today, when I opened the launcher and pressed play, it seemed like it was going to launch Minecraft, but the launcher crashed and gave me this game output:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: net/minecraft/client/main/Main : Unsupported major.minor version 52.0
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:637)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:621)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
	at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247)

I have a MacBook Pro from about 2011 (I know, it's old) and it is running MAC OS X 10.7.5. I tried googling my problem, but I couldn't quite find the solution. One solution I found was to download the latest version of java, so I went ahead and downloaded Java 8 Update 131. I tried opening Minecraft again, but no luck. I then opened Terminal and typed

java -version

and this was the output:

java version "1.6.0_65"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode)
Luzs-MacBook-Pro:~ luz$ 

I think this means that my computer is not running Java 8 and it is running Java 6? I read that the new Minecraft launcher would not accept java versions 6 and 7, so I'm suspecting that this is the problem, I just don't know how to fix it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

1.12 requires Java 8

I know, I installed Java 8, but I don't think my computer is running it for some reason, since my Minecraft still won't open.

??

You need to manually set the java directory for the game. Go to System Preferences, click on "Java", go to the "Java" tab and click "View". Select and copy all of the text under "Path".

Now open the Minecraft Launcher. Click "Launch options" and click on the version of the game you're trying to run. Head down to "Java executable" and turn that on. Paste the text you copied into the box.

My Mac is running 10.12.3, but I think the steps are the same for all macOS versions.

In my case, the path to my Java 8 installation was

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/java

Quote from sam_86314»

You need to manually set the java directory for the game. Go to System Preferences, click on "Java", go to the "Java" tab and click "View". Select and copy all of the text under "Path".

Now open the Minecraft Launcher. Click "Launch options" and click on the version of the game you're trying to run. Head down to "Java executable" and turn that on. Paste the text you copied into the box.

My Mac is running 10.12.3, but I think the steps are the same for all macOS versions.

In my case, the path to my Java 8 installation was

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/java