ViewApplet quit working after 8.5.1 upgrade

We recently upgraded from 6.5.6 to 8.5.1. When I tested our Domino applications, the views failed to display and I received the following error:

load: class lotus.notes.apps.viewapplet.ViewApplet.class not found.

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: lotus.notes.apps.viewapplet.ViewApplet.class

at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)

at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.createApplet(Unknown Source)

at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Caused by: java.io.IOException: open HTTP connection failed:http://10.5.9.15:8081/domjava/lotus/notes/apps/viewapplet/ViewApplet/class.class

at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.getBytes(Unknown Source)

at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.access$000(Unknown Source)

at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)

at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)

... 7 more

My coworker tried it and it worked fine for him. We compared the JRE we had installed and found that he was at 6.0.7, while I was at 6.0.18. I downgraded to 6.0.7 and now the views are working for me.

So I have two questions:

  1. Why would 6.0.18 work with Domino 6.5.6 and not with 8.5.1?

  2. Has anyone else had this problem?