JFileChooser hangs sometimes

I am running into the problem of the "hanging JFileChooser" as described in the following threads:

http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5309960

http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=724817

http://x86.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5275999&messageID=10156541

I am using JVM 1.6.0_07-b06. It happens on Windows XP as well as on Windows Vista.

Has anybody found a workaround for this yet?

From stackoverflow

• I've run into this myself and the updates didn't help. Strangely enough, removing all zip files (particularly large ones) from my desktop (JFileChooser's default location) solved the issue.

  dkp : I do not have any zip files on my desktop nor in the file chooser startup location

  bcash : Sorry that didn't help. As an FYI, here the link to the discussion regarding JFileChooser and large zip files on the desktop http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5207221&messageID=9901574

  Zombies : Oh man, this sure helped ME. I can't get how Java is getting THIS ridiculous now. I have been using it at college/hobby and ofc work for going on 9 years now and it is really getting annoying.

• There's a bug where if you a networked drive mapped on the desktop, it can sometimes hang on the JFileChooser. That or it might be a shortcut to a networked drive. Something along those lines...

  Tom Hawtin - tackline : A second floppy drive (remember them?) might also be a problem I think.

• The .10 update is supposed to fix the zipfile related one.

• Yes, it was a bug, but I believe recent versions of Java no longer have it.
  There are a few workarounds(although they are all dirty hacks):
  

  1. Use a thread to wait until it was initialized
  2. Reuse the same JFileChooser(store it in a variable) instead of creating new ones. If possible, lazily initialize them:

  
  public static JFileChooser chooser = null;
  
  public static void doSomething(){
      if(chooser==null)
           chooser = new JFileChooser();
      //use JFileChooser
  }
  

  This way your users have to wait less... but they still will need to wait. The only way to really fix this is to update your JRE.