jvm applets and memory problems

English Applications
1

My goal:
to run multiple (4) instances of one java application (applet) in different browser windows (though the same browser, i.e. firefox). Each applet requires a separate login and uses ssl. The applet is on a remote website.

My problem:
instead of assigning each applet instance it’s own piece of jvm memory, it seems like only one big piece of memory is used for all instances together. On xp, vista and os x each applet get it’s own piece of the jvm memory. The most visible way is when you close one applet (i.e. browser window), the other ones turn grey and become unusable. The biggest problem with this is that the applets run out of memory very fast, resulting in major lag and warnings all over the screen (something like ‘freeing up applet memory failed, relog or lalalalala’). Not sure if those warnings are build in to the jvm or if they are applet specific. Which doesn’t really matter actually as they become unusable anyway.

*My specs: *
opensuse 11.0 - 32-bit
kde 3.5.9 release 49.1
kernel 2.6.25.18-0.2-pae i686
CPU: core 2 duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz
8 gb ram, 16 gb swap partition
gpu: nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS with 3D accel, dual monitor setup

My work around/tests:

  • Tried to run different firefox profiles, running in each profile 1 applet. To no avail as they behave the same like 1 profile with 4 windows open.
  • Having the java console open and clicking X (clear cache) on a regular base, has little to no result
  • Downgraded to sun java 6 update 7 (instead of update 11), as this seems to be the version that gives the least problems.
  • Tried all java alternatives (icedtea, etc) for sun that yast gives me. They perform worse than sun.
  • Opera & konqueror are no option. Hard to even open 2 instances, not to mention 4. The only browser that performs better than firefox is ephiphany.
  • I have increased the jvm memory to -Xmx1536m in the java console which results in better performance, though increasing it even more has little to no result.

My questions:

  • Is there a way to force (a) browser(s) to assign each applet it’s own piece of jvm memory?
  • Is there a specific terminology for this problem? I call it piece of jvm memory, but other terms might be more applicable. Would make my search easier I guess.
  • Are there any other settings/things/stuff/trics that can enhance my performance?

Thanks in advance
rik

2

Maybe your problem is more code related. Are you using many static definitions?
Is it an open-source application? Can you point to the code?
I don’t think so that there would be any problem with JVM - it’s a very cleaver program - but if your code is wrong it doesn’t helps.

3

That is possible. But it’s not my code, it’s a proprietary application I use. I am no java developer at all.

The code that loads the applet has however

PARAM name="separate_jvm" value="true"

which sould force the respective instances their own heap of the jvm memory. Though I can see only 1 jvm process with ps aux | grep java.

So my guess was that some tweaks were needed to use it on linux/opensuse.