Cipher not initialized

Question

JDK 1.4.2_03 under Weblogic 8.1 sp3 using 128-bit (domestic strength)encryption:
Received the following exception during HTTPS call and I'd like to know under what circumstances the Cipher class would not be initialized (see in bold within stack trace). From the API docs, it appears that javax.crypto.Cipher.init should throw an exception if there's a problem. So, the only thing I can think of is that javax.crypto.Cipher.update was called by com.certicom.tls.provider.Cipher.update before it called init.
BEA has not been able to reproduce the problem but I don't think they can exactly replicate our operating env either.
Is there any reason to believe that javax.crypto.Cipher.init could fail without throwing an exception??
NOTE: The same code works fine if 40-bit (export strength) encryption is used.
java.rmi.RemoteException: EJB Exception: ; nested exception is:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cipher not initialized
at weblogic.rjvm.BasicOutboundRequest.sendReceive(BasicOutboundRequest.java:108)
at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ReplicaAwareRemoteRef.invoke(ReplicaAwareRemoteRef.java:284)
at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ReplicaAwareRemoteRef.invoke(ReplicaAwareRemoteRef.java:244)
at ssltest.SSLTestClientBean_2ygag0_EOImpl_813_WLStub.executeTest(Unknown Source)
at ssltest.SSLTestMain.invokeBean(SSLTestMain.java:172)
at ssltest.SSLTestMain.execute(SSLTestMain.java:101)
at ssltest.SSLTestMain.main(SSLTestMain.java:82)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cipher not initialized
at javax.crypto.Cipher.update(DashoA6275)
at com.certicom.tls.provider.Cipher.update(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.WriteHandler.compressEncryptSend(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.WriteHandler.compressEncryptSend(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.MessageFragmentor.write(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.WriteHandler.write(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.interfaceimpl.TLSConnectionImpl.fireAlertSent(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.handshake.HandshakeHandler.fireAlert(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.handshake.HandshakeHandler.fireAlert(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.handshake.HandshakeHandler.handleHandshakeMessage(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.handshake.HandshakeHandler.handleHandshakeMessages(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.ReadHandler.interpretContent(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.ReadHandler.readRecord(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.ReadHandler.readUntilHandshakeComplete(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.interfaceimpl.TLSConnectionImpl.completeHandshake(Unknown Source)
at com.certicom.tls.record.WriteHandler.write(Unknown Source)
at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flushBuffer(BufferedOutputStream.java:66)
at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flush(BufferedOutputStream.java:124)
at java.io.FilterOutputStream.flush(FilterOutputStream.java:123)
at weblogic.net.http.HttpURLConnection.writeRequests(HttpURLConnection.java:101)
at weblogic.net.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:298)
at weblogic.net.http.SOAPHttpsURLConnection.getInputStream(SOAPHttpsURLConnection.java:29)
at ssltest.SSLTestClientBean.executeTest(SSLTestClientBean.java:81)
at ssltest.SSLTestClientBean_2ygag0_EOImpl.executeTest(SSLTestClientBean_2ygag0_EOImpl.java)
at ssltest.SSLTestClientBean_2ygag0_EOImpl_WLSkel.invoke(Unknown Source)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.invoke(BasicServerRef.java:477)
at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ReplicaAwareServerRef.invoke(ReplicaAwareServerRef.java:108)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef$1.run(BasicServerRef.java:420)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:144)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.handleRequest(BasicServerRef.java:415)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicExecuteRequest.execute(BasicExecuteRequest.java:30)
at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:219)
at weblogic.kernel.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:178)
CODE SNIPPETS:URL targetURLObj = new URL(url);
HttpURLConnection urlCon = (java.net.HttpURLConnection) targetURLObj.openConnection();
urlCon.setAllowUserInteraction(true);
urlCon.setDoOutput(true);
String encoding = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder().encode(userPassword.getBytes());
urlCon.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + encoding);
urlCon.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "text/xml");
DataOutputStream outStream = new DataOutputStream(urlCon.getOutputStream());
urlCon.connect();
outStream.write(messageBytes, 0, messageBytes.length);
outStream.flush();
//*********ERROR OCCURS HERE**********
DataInputStream inStream = new DataInputStream(urlCon.getInputStream());
int available = inStream.available();
byte[] responseBytes = new byte[available];
int bufferSize = Math.min(available, maxBufferSize);
while (available > 0)
    available = inStream.read(responseBytes, 0, bufferSize);
String response = new String(responseBytes).trim();

Answer 1

This is probably caused by nCipher Cipher.init method failing for the initialization parameters it received. As a result the Cipher does not get initialized and throws exception every time it is used.
It might be you are using newer nCipher version than the version supported in 810, and its Cipher impl is not compatible with the previous nCipher version.
Pavel.