Comment 6 for bug 440841

I am running into the same problem trying to access an online learning site (http://www2.sunpoweruniversity.com/SunPowerContent/VAR/site/index.html). When I go to that page, it fails to finish loading and prints the following error messages to the console:

OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.8) (6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 14.0-b16, mixed mode)
java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
        at java.lang.Thread.sleep(Native Method)
        at sun.applet.PluginAppletViewer.handleMessage(PluginAppletViewer.java:735)
        at sun.applet.PluginAppletViewer.handleMessage(PluginAppletViewer.java:649)
        at sun.applet.PluginStreamHandler.handleMessage(PluginStreamHandler.java:270)
        at sun.applet.PluginMessageHandlerWorker.run(PluginMessageHandlerWorker.java:82)
java.lang.Exception: Applet initialization timeout
        at sun.applet.PluginAppletViewer.handleMessage(PluginAppletViewer.java:637)
        at sun.applet.PluginStreamHandler.handleMessage(PluginStreamHandler.java:270)
        at sun.applet.PluginMessageHandlerWorker.run(PluginMessageHandlerWorker.java:82)
java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to handle message: handle 27270028 for instance 1
        at sun.applet.PluginAppletViewer.handleMessage(PluginAppletViewer.java:660)
        at sun.applet.PluginStreamHandler.handleMessage(PluginStreamHandler.java:270)
        at sun.applet.PluginMessageHandlerWorker.run(PluginMessageHandlerWorker.java:82)
Caused by: java.lang.Exception: Applet initialization timeout
        at sun.applet.PluginAppletViewer.handleMessage(PluginAppletViewer.java:637)
        ... 2 more
net.sourceforge.jnlp.LaunchException: Fatal: Initialization Error: Could not initialize applet.
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:603)
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:547)
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:728)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:587)
        ... 2 more
Caused by:
java.lang.NullPointerException
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.createApplet(Launcher.java:587)
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher.getApplet(Launcher.java:547)
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.Launcher$TgThread.run(Launcher.java:728)
java.lang.NullPointerException
        at net.sourceforge.jnlp.NetxPanel.runLoader(NetxPanel.java:99)
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(AppletPanel.java:380)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:636)
java.lang.NullPointerException
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(AppletPanel.java:430)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:636)
Error: Unable to fetch applet instance id from Java side.

I can close the tab, but shortly afterwards the CPU usage for the Java process goes to 100%. I can manually kill the Java process and Firefox will still continue running. I am running Ubuntu 10.04 x86-64, and I have the following Java packages installed:

icedtea6-plugin 6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1
openjdk-6-jre 6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1
openjdk-6-jre-headless 6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1
openjdk-6-jre-lib 6b18-1.8-0ubuntu1
sun-java6-bin 6.20dlj-1ubuntu3
sun-java6-fonts 6.20dlj-1ubuntu3
sun-java6-jdk 6.20dlj-1ubuntu3
sun-java6-jre 6.20dlj-1ubuntu3

I also tried installing sun-java6-plugin instead of icedtea and openjdk, but I still could not access the site. With Sun's Java plugin, I do not get any errors on the console and Firefox completely locks up.