Why do I have to use separate jvm for my applet?

Question

I made up an applet to auto dial a contacts number via our phone system switchvox, as well as log the call information into our CRM, salesforce. The issue I am running into is that unless I use the separate JVM parameter things get screwy.

For example say they have multiple tabs open for multiple contacts, thus multiple applets running in the same jvm. Without the separate jvm parameter sometimes it will dial a number from another tab. I pass the number via the parameter tags and I have even tried passing the number by calling a JS method from the applet with still no luck.

Since our crm is cloud based people like to have multiple tabs open, but do not like seeing multiple java icons down below, go figure. Anybody have this issue before, and/or have a workaround without the separate jvms.

Answer 1

It is hard to say without looking at your applet's code.

But I would hazard a guess that your code is putting some of its mutable state in statics, and occasionally one instance of the applet is interfering with another via the statics.

If you have any shared mutable statics in your applet, ideally you should get rid of them. Or if the state really needs to be shared by multiple instances of the applet, make sure that all accesses are properly synchronized.

Answer 2

Statics are shared among the applets since they're all running in the same VM. You could try the classloader_cache="false" applet option and still share the VM. I am not sure whether this option applies only on applet startup, however, as I haven't had success with it working all the time.

The best bet is to get rid of statics or use separate_jvm.