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We have encountered weird launch problem with our webstart application (not an applet).

Starting the application shows the application splash screen but javaws process terminates shortly after without any error messages show in dialogs, java console or log files. It seems that javaws just stops before actually launching the actual application. It doesn't matter if the user tries to start application from desktop shortcut or from the webpage. Same application works without any issues when run with javaw from local computer without webstart.

The application is signed application (real certificate, not self-signed one) and user has shortcut to application on the desktop. jnlp defines that application can be run offline and update-check is done with timeout -option. Server side is using jnl-servlet to serve correct jar versions.

The issue does not occur every time, but if the launch fails like this once, it is very likely (we have observed around 90% certainty) that following starts also fail. Restarting the computer does not seem to help. The issue is limited to few computers only. Most users (98%) don't have the issue.

All failing systems are Running Windows 7 Pro. Java version might vary but one example is 64bit Java 1.8.0_60, Win7Pro, 64bit intel-i3 processor.

What could be the cause for this kind of issues? Any help on resolving the issue is highly appreciated. Especially as there doesn't seem to be any error messages available to help pinpointing the problem.

Jupe
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  • We're facing the same problem. Looks like bug, because the 8.60 release notes doesn't say a thing about changes in JNLP. – Rodrigo Almeida Sep 11 '15 at 20:57
  • Do you have the Java console turned on? Does it show up? Anything in it? You can redirect the java console output to a file somehow, too -- that might prove useful if it shows up briefly and then disappears. – Matt McHenry Sep 16 '15 at 17:14
  • The console is turned on, but there are no messages shown there. Also I've tried to enable logging to a file, but no trace were there either (there might be a mistake logging configuration to file though). – Jupe Sep 29 '15 at 07:53
  • We're experiencing the same behavior. Have you been able to identify the problem? – jansohn Oct 26 '16 at 07:57
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1912676/i-am-not-able-launch-jnlp-applications-using-java-web-start – Lycone Oct 17 '17 at 14:31

1 Answers1

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I have had the problem with 1.8.0_60 that the DTD validation seems to be forced when referenced per url in the doctype of the JNLP file. Webstart tries to download the DTD and without internet connectivity the application fails to start. This wasn't a problem in 1.8.0_51.

As a workaround, we removed the doctype from the JNLP.

<!DOCTYPE jnlp PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc//DTD JNLP Descriptor 6.0//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/JNLP-6.0.dtd">
chrisp
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  • In our case the computer has working network connection, but this is worth trying in any case. – Jupe Sep 29 '15 at 07:54
  • We tried removing the doctype definition from jnlp, but have been still facing same issue. The problematic thing is that we have not been able to identify steps that would reproduce the issue every time or at least very often. So far issue seems to occur quite randomly. – Jupe Nov 23 '15 at 10:41