In a recent advisory, Oracle has issued a warning to Apple customers regarding the installation of the latest macOS 14.4 Sonoma update. According to Oracle, this update has the potential to disrupt Java functionality on Apple silicon CPUs.

The issue at hand causes the Java process to terminate without warning on impacted Macs that are equipped with M1, M2, and M3 processors. This problem occurs intermittently and affects all Java versions, from Java 8 to the latest early access builds of JDK 22.

Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro, Senior Director of Product Management at Oracle, stated that there are currently no workarounds available for this issue. Additionally, affected users may face difficulties reverting to a stable configuration, as there is no straightforward method for reversing a macOS update.

The underlying cause of this problem lies in how macOS responds when a Java process attempts to access memory in protected regions. In previous versions of macOS, the operating system would send a SIGBUS or SIGSEGV signal to the process, allowing it to decide how to proceed. However, macOS 14.4 now uses a SIGKILL signal, which abruptly terminates the process.

With the Java Virtual Machine's reliance on dynamic code generation and access to memory in protected regions for performance and correctness, the process is terminated after updating to macOS 14.4.

Oracle has taken swift action and notified their customers, Apple, and their OpenJDK partners about this issue. They strongly advise Apple users to delay updating their systems until a solution is implemented.

Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro emphasized, "We recommend that users of Java on ARM-based Apple devices running macOS 14 delay applying the update until this issue is resolved."

As reported by MacRumors, users who have already installed the macOS 14.4 Sonoma update have reported additional problems beyond Java unexpectedly terminating. However, details regarding these issues were not disclosed in the provided information.

BleepingComputer reached out to Apple for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

It is essential for Apple customers who rely on Java to heed Oracle’s warning and postpone the installation of the macOS 14.4 Sonoma update until a resolution is available.