Oracle SQL Developer not responsive when trying to view tables (or suggest an Oracle Mac client)

Question

I just get the beach ball all day long (it's been doing nothing for hours). It's not taking CPU, not reading from disk, not using the network.

I'm using Java 1.6 on Mac OS X 10.5.4. It worked once, now even restarts of the computer won't help. Activity Monitor says it's "(Not Responding)". Only thing that I can do is kill -9 that sucker.

When I sample the process I see this:

    mach_msg_trap        16620
    read        831
    semaphore_wait_trap        831

An acceptable answer that doesn't fix this would include a url for a decent free Oracle client for the Mac.

Edit: @Mark Harrison sadly this happens every time I start it up, it's not an old connection. I'll like to avoid running Windows on my laptop. I'm giving some plugins for my IDE a whirl, but still no solution for me. @Matthew Schinckel Navicat seems to only have a non-commercial Oracle product...I need a commercial friendly one (even if it costs money).

Answer 1

The company Navicat has released an Oracle client for Mac (and they do a Windows version too).

It's not free, but I think you can get a 30 day demo.

Answer 2

I get the same problem after there's been an active connection sitting idle for a while. I solve it by restarting sql developer every once in a while.

I also have Toad for Oracle running on a vmware XP session, and it works great. If you don't mind the money, try that.

Answer 3

Squirrel is a nice database agonstic application development client. No Oracle specific features, but runs well on the mac

Answer 4

The latest version of SQL Developer is very good and I have experienced no problems with it on my Mac Pro. DB Solo 3 is also quite good.

Answer 5

I use SQLDeveloper on the Mac and have had problems where it becomes unresponsive. Usually, I can fix this by going into the Activity Monitor and killing the process. However, this doesn't always work to end the process. When that happens, I go to the Terminal and find the process id and send it a SIGKILL and then the next time it will work correctly.

However, more importantly I evaluated SQLGrinder at one point. I didn't end up buying the software, largely because I have a Mac laptop and a windows desktop. Therefore, I more often use Toad on the windows desktop and it wasn't worth purchasing SQLGrinder for me.

Answer 6

Have you looked at http://www.aquafold.com/? They have a very JDBC/java Mac-friendly utility, Aqua Data Studio (ADS) that you can try for I think 30 days. It's not free, but...

Excellent support via Yahoo groups. VERY responsive re bugs or enhancement requests.

No affiliation with them - just a fan.

Answer 7

Any luck at the official Oracle SQL Developer Forum? Here is the link -> here

Answer 8

Use RazorSQL. Do yourself a favor and spend the 60 bucks. It will pay for itself in the first hour or two of use. You may even be able to get 60 days for free out of it.