ADDITIONAL SYSTEM INFORMATION :
MacOS Mojave (10.14.6)
Test on
    JDK1.8.0_192
    JDK 9
    JDK 10.0.2
    JDK 11.0.2
    JDK 12.0.2
    JDK 13 (build 13+33)

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Launching an executable jar with -jar fails when a required jar on the class-path is a symlink. However executing the same program using -cp succeeds.

myApp.jar (contains main method)
      manifest file contains class-path variable that points to myLib.jar
myLib.jar (must be on the class-path)

When myLib.jar is a symlink the following error occur when launching the jar using java -jar

Error: Unable to initialize main class ...
(for JDK 9, JDK 10.0.2 JDK 11.0.2, JDK 12.0.2, JDK 13 (build 13+33))

Error: A JNI error has occured, please check your installation and try again
(for JDK1.8.0_192)

These errors do not occur if any one of the follow holds true:
1) The symlink is replace with the actual jar file.
    or
2) The app is launched without -jar and using -cp to point to myLib.jar. Using -cp the JVM follows the symlink without issue.

It would be nice if the JVM resolved class-path dependencies in jar manifest the same way it does with command line option -cp. This includes resolving 1) symlinks and 2) wildcard paths