The problem was due to a specific combination of web and application server. When the applet is served through a specific web server that is linked to a specific application server, we are getting the SSL errors we mentioned before:
IBM HTTP Server 7 and Websphere Application Server 7

We have tried certificates that work in other environments in this particular combination and all certificates fail to work. It seems to be related to the web/app server combination rather than the certificate itself. The certificates that failed in this environment, work fine in another environment.

Console log attached. The test applet in QA should exhibit this behavior with the problematic combination of web and app server.

Final conclusion is SSL certificates are not the cause of this issue. TP applets are having issues in loading with JRE 8.0 Series in IBM IHS 7.0 and WAS 7.0 environment.

Triage: ILW=HMH=P2