Why doesn't my applet's RMI-calls work in a web-browser? They are working correctly on a appletviewer. The applet is running within the web-browser, but RMI-calls are not working at all. Any idea what the problem is? Can there be some security problems? I am using both Internet Explorer 5.0 and Netscape.

Created Apr 28, 2001

Niek van Suchtelen

RMI doesn't work in Internet Explorer because Microsoft decided not to support it in its attempt to ruin Java. They did put a patch file somewhere on their site that you can download and install, after which your Internet Explorer will support RMI, but that doesn't help much if you have an applet and you want all your visitors to use it (since they'd all have to download that patch, which is buried somewhere deep in a hard to find place on Microsoft's site. This was done on purpose [which became clear after the Sun vs. Microsoft trial], in a further attempt to ruin Java).

I'm not sure as to why RMI wouldn't work on Netscape though.. i think it should work on there, but there might be some other reason for it. It might be that you have to change the security settings in there. Actually, i think if you load the applet locally (instead of over the network), it does work.

Probably the best solution for you would be to use Sun's Java plug-in. That way, you don't have to deal with Microsoft anymore, and you can even use Swing and other Java2 stuff in your applets. It's quite a big download for the average user (about 5MB if i'm not mistaken), but still a lot easier for end-users to install than the Microsoft RMI patch. Obviously, you can also change your applet so it doesn't need RMI anymore.