In June 2024, Github deprecated the macos-11 Github Actions (GHA) runners, resulting in hanging macos tests in different OpenJDK repositories.

Issue "JDK-8318039: GHA: Bump macOS and Xcode versions" was then applied to different repositories (jdk21, jdk17, jdk11) to upgrade build platforms to macos-13 and XCode 14.3.1.

For jdk11 the change from macos-11 to macos-13 required many different backports that proved difficult, and risky, to review.

Instead of upgrading from macos-11 to macos-13, upgrading to an intermediate version of macos-12 with XCode-13.4.1 requires only a single backport of "JDK-8299254: Support dealing with standard assert macro" , making the whole process easier to review.

It may also make it less complicated to bring macos tests back in place in the jdk8u-dev repository.