Java issue on Safari and Firefox

Hallo. I've been trying to load the following page containing some Java applets

http://www.slu.edu/classes/maymk/banchoff/Grapher2D.html

Safari and Firefox don't load any of the applets (I just get an "Error" message with no further detail) while Google Chrome has no problem loading the page and each of the applets.

I wonder if Chrome has a special plugin for java (in chrome://plugins it says that it has a Java Plug-In 2 for NPAPI Browsers ) allowing it to make a workaround to a system wide problem in java for mac.

I've also tried to get to the page with Windows Xp via Parallels and everything is smooth and fine. Several other java applets on other sites show the same problem.

I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.4 with Java 1.6.0_20 installed.

 

I've reinstalled Java with the package downloade from the Apple site. The problem persists.

I've tried to run Safari in 32bit mode with no result. I've tried to set java to 32 bit mode in Java Preferences, but when i lode the applets, it is still in 64 bit mode.

Are you running Java in 32 bit mode maybe?

 

Finally, it is a 32 bit vs 64 bit problem : in Java Preferences I've set the following option to the Java Virtual Machine for applets:

HTML:

-d32

Now both Firefox and Safari work with java applets.

 

Sad thing: the problem comes back with no apparent reason.