I guess this shows how little I actually go to sites that use java. When I finally encountered one yesterday, I learned that java was broken on my computer where my browser was concerned. I use Opera and anyone who has used it for any time knows that this happens regularly with Opera. Especially when it comes to updates. It’s annoying, but the advantages of Opera over other browsers makes it worth the minor hassle.
I’ll spare the blow-by-blow and get right to the solution. Assuming that the sun-java-plugin is installed and linked to properly, there is one system setting that needs to be adjusted. In the /etc/sysctl.d/bindv6only.conf file the net.ipv6.bindv6only setting should be 0 instead of 1. (I suppose I should mention that I’m running a 64-bit debian/testing setup.) Networking had to be restarted after making the change.
See here for details.