Unable to perform file transfers in vCloud with Java 7 Update 45

I recently tried to download a vCloud template, which uses Java, and was unable to do so.  Nothing would happen when I clicked the browse button to choose the destination for the OVF on my local filesystem.  I don’t perform file transfers in vCloud very often so I’m not sure when the issue started, but I believe that Java must have been upgraded at some point and is now causing the problem.

I appears that there are two fixes.  The first is to go to the Control Panel in Windows.  (or wherever your OS has its Java settings).  Open the Java control panel item, select Security and set the security to the lowest option (medium).  This probably isn’t a good idea so I’ll explain how to update to the latest version of Java (as of this post) where you can leave the Java security setting at high and still access vCloud’s Java functionality.

Update to Java 7 Update 51

Go to http://www.java.com and update Java.  Once  you’re finished you should receive

You can also go to http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp to verify your Java version.

Uninstall older versions of Java

If you no longer need any of the previous versions of Java, I suggest removing them.  You can remove them by going to http://www.java.com/en/download/uninstallapplet.jsp or through the Windows Control Panel.  On one system I had to reboot in order to remove the older versions of Java completely.

Here I’m removing Java 7 Update 45

Configure Java’s security settings

Now with only the current Java installed, we can go to the control panel and make our security changes.  On Windows 7 to go Start > Control Panel > Java > Security tab.  If you have correctly done everything above, you will see

Select “Edit Site List…” and enter the URLs of your vCloud server(s).

Try the download again

Now we can go to vCloud and perform a Java related action that wasn’t working previously.  Here I’m going to try to download a template.  Upon selecting the Browse button to choose the destination for the template OVF I receive

Choose “Don’t Block” and press cancel on the current vCloud window.  Now try to download the template again and you should receive your OS’s program that allows you to choose the OVF destination.

I want to say that either after or before the last screenshot there was another step that I missed where it again asked if you wanted to Allow/Not Allow Java to run.