Java applets fail to render correctly after update to 9.04

[Matt]

Binary package hint: sun-java6-plugin

After upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04, applets that are used to configure backend telephony software for our customer no longer render correctly.

The main issue is that the drop downs are not appearing at all. These are fairly old AWT applets.

Earlier versions of java 6 were fine.

For now, I've had to uninstall java 6 and roll back to using java 5 which do render properly.

sun-java6-plugin:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 6-13-1
  Version table:
     6-13-1 0
        500 http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/multiverse Package

Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04

[Matt (mhook)]

2 screenshots of the same dialog have been attached. In the latest Java 6 version you can see that there is a lot of
blank space above the last 2 drop down sections. In the Java 5 version thats all shown.

[James Stansell (jamesstansell)]

Matt, beginning with java6u10 there are two java plugins. The old OJI one and the new (incompatible with firefox 2.x) NPAPI one. The new one may be less compatible with ancient applets.

I'm not positive but I think 9.04 may use the new plugin by default. But you should be able to switch to the old one if you like. I suppose there are several ways to do it, depending on your needs. Other bugs and questions here in launchpad have some details, as well as the ubuntuforums and the java.net forums.

Of course it's possible your problem lies completely elsewhere anyway ...

Regards,

-james.

[Matt (mhook)]

Oddly enough it appears that firefox by default under Ubuntu is using the OJI plugin.

However, I happened to clear the browser cache and everything now works.
So I guess something bad is being cached.

This didn't just occur on my computer. My colleague had exactly the same issue occur under the latest Kubuntu 9.04 as well - he also resorted to using java 5. I'll get him to try using java6 and clearing the cache out to see if it fixes his problem.