Upgrade to macOS Catalina broke the Arduino IDE

Everything was working fine and then I upgraded to macOS Catalina. The Arduino IDE version 1.8.12 just wouldn't start. Then I ran from terminal and looked at the actually error.

./Arduino
Set log4j store directory /Users/cbensen/Library/Arduino15
2020-07-30 08:39:47.311 Arduino[73800:11442574] name is : .SFNS-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.311 Arduino[73800:11442574] family is : .AppleSystemUIFont
2020-07-30 08:39:47.311 Arduino[73800:11442574] name is : .SFNS-Bold
2020-07-30 08:39:47.311 Arduino[73800:11442574] family is : .AppleSystemUIFont
2020-07-30 08:39:47.312 Arduino[73800:11442574] name is : .SFNSMono-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.312 Arduino[73800:11442574] family is : .SF NS Mono
2020-07-30 08:39:47.706 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.706 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Set a breakpoint on CTFontLogSystemFontNameRequest to debug.
2020-07-30 08:39:47.706 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNS-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.707 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Bold", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.707 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNS-Bold
2020-07-30 08:39:47.707 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNSMono-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.707 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNSMono-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.710 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNSMono-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.710 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNSMono-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.710 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNSMono-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.710 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNSMono-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.713 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.713 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNS-Regular
2020-07-30 08:39:47.713 Arduino[73800:11442574] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Bold", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2020-07-30 08:39:47.713 Arduino[73800:11442574] needed to substitute Lucida Grande for: .SFNS-Bold
java.lang.NullPointerException
at cc.arduino.contributions.packages.ContributionsIndexer.parseIndex(ContributionsIndexer.java:134)
at processing.app.BaseNoGui.initPackages(BaseNoGui.java:483)
at processing.app.Base.<init>(Base.java:273)
at processing.app.Base.main(Base.java:150)

After some digging around, trying a few things I came across this article https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/issues/9828 and I decided to live life on the edge and try the hourly build! And that did it. So there's an issue and it apparently is known and has been fixed.

Running Out of Memory with SQL Developer

Previously I wrote about getting SQL Developer to work, well, just work here. It just doesn't work as downloaded and is still a very useful tool when connecting to databases. I recently ran into another issue, which is out of memory problems. It's rather easy to fix but I spent all day tracking down in the boot scripts for how. So here's how (even if all I'm doing is documenting it for my future self):

1. Open the file in your favorite text editor:

/Applications/SQLDeveloper.app/Contents/Resources/sqldeveloper/ide/bin/ide.conf

2. Search for the line:

AddVMOption  -Xmx800M

3. Change it to more, a lot more! I just added a couple zeros and I'm all good:

AddVMOption  -Xmx80000M

So there you have it.

Behind the Scenes - Building the World's Largest Raspberry Pi Cluster

I thought I'd published this already. Well, better late than never. Here is a look behind the scenes of building this amazing piece of equipment.

https://youtu.be/KbVcRQQ9PNw