I use Fedora Core 3 Linux, and keep up to date with all recommended patches and upgrades to all system software. Sometime recently (not sure exactly when), javaws stopped working for me - on all versions of Java, incl 1.4.2_06, 1.5.0_01, and 1.6.0 EAs. Whenever I start the "javaws" process in any way - with a JNLP URL from a web browser or not, or even with no arguments - it soon hangs and consumes 100% of CPU.

Strace shows that it is attempting to do something with a 'java' subprocess which is defunct according to ps. I am attaching full output. Ctrl-\ does not work to get a Java stacktrace.

All other applications, incl. large Java apps such as NetBeans, seem to be running fine on my machine; it is just javaws which does not run. I have cleaned out my .java/ cache dir just in case, but that does not help.
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