I’ve recently been struggling to get the Oracle SGD desktop client working on macOS Sierra (10.12.3, specifically).

I’d installed Java, Firefox and XQuartz but kept getting a Java error saying “Failed to install SGD client”.

Here’s what I found I needed:

• Java – because it’s a Java app
• Mozilla Firefox – easiest way to run Java web apps on a Mac
• XQuartz – the open source replacement for the Apple X11.app which used to be included with OS X.
• The Oracle SGD Desktop client, usually available from the logon page for your SGD service.

If you have XQuartz 2.7.10 or later you will also need to run the following commands in Terminal:

sudo mv /opt/X11/lib/libXt.6.dylib{,.bak}
sudo cp /opt/X11/lib{/flat_namespace,}/libXt.6.dylib

My thanks to this Harris Geospatial web page for pointing me in the direction for that fix.

Some people may find it necessary to move the “Oracle Secure Global Desktop Client” from the main /Applications folder to your local user ~/Applications folder.