I didn't post because your first post makes no sense.
After having installed the latest updates of MS and Sun Java
This is interesting because the MS Java Virtual Machine was discontinued something like 8 years ago. Therefore I'm not sure what you would "update" it to. nonetheless.
I do get a strange error when using a.o. my bankaccount which runs Java:
Alright, cool, so this is a java problem!
It says:
Microsoft JScript Error
and shows:
Expected ')'
wut? You're on about java and now you're telling us about JScript errors in the page. They are unrelated.
What is this and how do I get rid of it?
It's a script error. That should be rather clear from the title bar. It also has nothing to do with Java, despite your rambling to the contrary. correlation!= causation.
Java works fine...
Well... then what the *censored* is the problem?
Sounds to me like whomever designed the bank site did so very poorly, combined with not carefully testing with all browser versions. Personally any bank that uses Java (how very 1996) for the sensitive actions of account management, is something I would stay the heck away from.
Also, whomever wrote the content in the link you gave is talking out their *censored*. JScript/JavaScript is absolutely unrelated in any way to Java. "purging java from your system" is about as likely to fix a JScript/JavaScript error as taking antibiotics is likely to cure HIV.
From the Bug page, which should not be on Java.com for the aforementioned reason that it's not related to java, it could happen with flash as well. nonetheless:
After much testing (ie: IE6, IE7, Multiple Java versions, etc) we have isolated it to be an issue with the newer versions of Java AND having IE configured to use a Proxy PAC file. I am now able to cause and fix this error at will.
Close all open copies of IE. In Control Panel go to "Internet Options". Select the Connections tab and then click the "LAN settings" button.
At the top section of this screen are two settings - "Automatically detect settings" and "Use automatic configuration script". The second option also has an area where you can type the address of your automatic configuration script (in our case a Proxy Autoconfiguration or .PAC file.
Before you try this, you may wish to save the address of your PAC file so you can put it back the way it originally was before testing. Now uncheck the "Use automatic configuration script" option (you can leave the "Automatically detect settings" option checked if that is how it is currently set), click OK on both of the open dialog boxes until you are back at Control Panel.
Fire up IE and now try your problem website again - hopefully it should work without the JScript error. For me - it does every time. I can break it by turning on the PAC file and I can fix it by turning of the PAC file. I can even leave the "Use automatic configuration script" option turned on, but give it an address to a non-existent PAC file and it will still work (I guess equivalent to not having a PAC file).
Just as an FYI, we spent quite a bit of time testing the code of the PAC file to ensure that this was not the issue and we have verified it is not - it is an issue between the latest Java versions and the PAC file. I have tested from V6 Release 3 up to V6 Release 13 and they all produce the same issue. I had seen some notes that suggested earlier releases of V6 do not have this issue, but in our case my testing disproves this.
Some of the comments in this thread led me to look at the PAC file area - thanks for your hints folks. :-)
For now I will have to create a shortcut which uses a .REG file to unset and set the "Use automatic configuration script" option when required. At the moment that is feasible because I only have one problem site, but if we were to upgrade our Java on all workstations I can see this issue becoming a major headache, based on the other reports I have read on this issue.
Hopefully Sun can resolve this fairly soon, as I have already spend considerable time on this one, and it seems to have been an outstanding issue for quite a while. I hope this post is some help to the rest of you.
let me summarize.
The problem is on your
bank's end.
