Junos Pulse Collaboration Client on OSX Mavericks

Just a quick post but this annoyed the pants off me recently, and caused me to miss a meeting last month when I could not join a meeting being hosted using Junos Pulse Collaboration. I didn’t find much on the web when I searched, so I may as well generate that content!

Eliminate Java Issues

The first problem you may have, most recently, is to find that Java blocks the untrusted application by default. This will kill the client, so needs to be fixed even before the other problems get a chance to manifest. When you go to join the conference, try the “System Compatibility Checker”. If you have the most recent Java update (I am running version 7 update 51), you’ll find that the test application is blocked by Java.

Let’s fix that problem first. Go to System preferences, and choose the Java option:

The Java control panel will open; go to the Security tab, and select Edit Site List.
Click on Add, click in the new entry, and add the site that you’re trying to run the client. In this case my meeting is with Juniper, so I’ll add “https://meeting.juniper.net/”:

Click OK. The Security tab should now look like this:

Now go back and try the compatibility tester again, and you should succeed and be told you can go join your meeting. Hooray!

Safari 7 + Mavericks

In Safari 7, the compatibility tester assures you that you are good to go. Joining the meeting doesn’t work, however and you will see this inexplicable error:

Got that? An error was encountered while downloading the target application from the secure gateway and could not fetch the file. Please contact your system administrator. Error Condition SL0x0D. What it really is trying to say, as I eventually discovered, is this:

(Source: https://kb.juniper.net/InfoCenter/index?page=content&id=KB28278)

It would be nice if the compatibility tool had checked that too, don’t you think? I’m a good boy who logs in early to run compatibility checks, and I got bitten because despite being good to go, apparently, actually this isn’t supported, and no workaround is offered.

So, you can’t run it in Safari.

UPDATE: But wait, there’s more! Chris Jones (@ipv6freely) pointed out that you can make it work in Safari. To do so, go to Safari -> Preferences, choose the Security tab, then click “Manage Website Settings”. On the left hand pane, click on Java, and then on the right hand side you should see site form which you recently-failed to load the Pulse client, presumably labeled as “allow”. Click on the dropdown next to the target site, then choose “Run in Unsafe Mode”:

Then when prompted click Trust. Don’t say you weren’t warned:

However, this does work, despite being a somewhat nasty-feeling workaround.

So, you CAN run it in Safari. If you don’t mind doing that.

 

Chrome & Mavericks

Um yeah. You can’t really do that either because Chrome on OSX can’t run 64-bit Java, so when you try and run anything in Java it asks you to install Java, only when you install a version separately I gather it causes issues with the Apple-supplied Java. I don’t know. I just recall reading that this was not a happy place to be, so I avoid it.

So, you can’t run it in Chrome.

Solution

Firefox. Honestly I stopped running Firefox a while back, and never installed it when I got my Mac but given that Safari and Chrome are a bust, what else can I do? Firefox works with Apple’s Java, and doesn’t do whatever evil thing Safari does to break the Junos Pulse Collaboration client.

You CAN run it in Firefox!

So that’s it. Fix the Java security settings, join your meeting via Firefox, grant permission for the Java app to be loaded, and you’re good to go. Hope this is of help!

UPDATE: An Additional Thought

To make this work in Safari, the workaround is to allow the Java app to run in Unsafe mode. What does it mean that I don’t have to do the same thing in Firefox? Maybe somebody who understands the security models can answer better.