Question
When I download the download agent from the MathWorks website on Mac OS X, it is trying to open in a text editor.
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Expert Answer
Prashant Kumar
PhD Expert
Answered Nov 20, 2025
If the download agent is not opening properly, there could be two issues occurring.
1) Please verify that the download agent is named download_agent.jnlp.
- Right click or control click the download agent icon and select get info
- In the Name & Extension field, if there is a .txt extension, remove it.
- Close the Info panel by click the red x on the top left.
- Launch the download agent again.
2) Java is not set as the default application for .jnlp files.
- Right click or control click the download agent icon and select "Open With >"
- Select Java Web Start.app
- If the Java Web Start.app is not listed, you can select other and browse to the directory /System/Library/CoreServices and and select it.
- To register Java Web Start as the default application of JNLP files, please use one of the following methods:
1) First method:
- In the Finder, open the /System/Library/CoreServices folder. Simply opening this folder will re-associate JNLP files with Java Web Start.app.
- Close the CoreServices Finder window.
- Open Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/).
- Type or paste the following command, then press Return:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister "/System/Library/CoreServices/Java Web Start.app"
- Close the Terminal window
If you cannot locate the Java Web Start.app, then you will need to make sure Java is properly installed on your system. Java can be downloaded and installed from java.com
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