still no java on FC2->FC4...help!

[Jack Howarth]

    I have one machine which was using the Sun JDK 1.5.0
java plugin (installed manually in /opt) fine under Fedora
Core 2. After upgrading this machine to Fedora Core 4 and
installing the jpackage rpms for JDK 1.5.0-05 using the
nosrc rpms from jpackage, I am unable to load java applets
in Firefox. If I go to the web page...

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

I get a red X in the Test your JVM section of that web page
and the Java console log shows...


Java Plug-in 1.5.0_05
Using JRE version 1.5.0_05 Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
User home directory = /home/prrlab


----------------------------------------------------
c:   clear console window
f:   finalize objects on finalization queue
g:   garbage collect
h:   display this help message
l:   dump classloader list
m:   print memory usage
o:   trigger logging
p:   reload proxy configuration
q:   hide console
r:   reload policy configuration
s:   dump system and deployment properties
t:   dump thread list
v:   dump thread stack
x:   clear classloader cache
0-5: set trace level to <n>
----------------------------------------------------

load: class testvm.class not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: testvm.class
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.findClass(AppletClassLoader.java:168)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.loadClass(AppletClassLoader.java:119)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:251)
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.loadCode(AppletClassLoader.java:599)
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.createApplet(AppletPanel.java:712)
        at sun.plugin.AppletViewer.createApplet(AppletViewer.java:1750)
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.runLoader(AppletPanel.java:641)
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(AppletPanel.java:320)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: open HTTP connection failed.
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.getBytes(AppletClassLoader.java:271)
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.access$100(AppletClassLoader.java:44)
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader$1.run(AppletClassLoader.java:158)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at sun.applet.AppletClassLoader.findClass(AppletClassLoader.java:155)
        ... 9 more
Exception in thread "Thread-5" java.lang.NullPointerException
        at sun.plugin.util.GrayBoxPainter.showLoadingError(GrayBoxPainter.java:1
53)
        at sun.plugin.AppletViewer.showAppletException(AppletViewer.java:1921)
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.runLoader(AppletPanel.java:646)
        at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(AppletPanel.java:320)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
/usr/share/themes/Clearlooks/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:49: Engine "clearlooks" is unsupporte
d, ignoring

I have tried both the 'use browser setting' and 'direct connection' from the
Networksettings in the Java Control Panel. Neither helps. Turning off the
firewall completely and/or disabling ipv6 doesn't help either. I also don't
have any better luck if I manually install the JDK binary from Sun in
/opt and symlink its plugin to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. Surely there must
have been other users with this problem, no? Thanks in advance for any
advice as I am loath to reinstall Fedora Core 4 just because of this
glitch.
                    Jack
ps I have clean installed Fedora Core 4 on another intel box and it
is able to use the same identical java packages without complaint on
the same network. It is insane that java is so hard to get working
on Fedora *sigh*.