Filereader only reads when launched from terminal

Question

My program consists of a JDialog which is launched from a JApplet. Part of my code requires that an input string be checked against a "dictionary" to see if it is a valid word. The dictionary consists of several word lists, organized by length, in a folder called "Data."
Here is the relevant code:
     public boolean checkDictionary (String word) {
          boolean acceptable = false;
          try {
               BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("Data/"+word.length()+"lw.txt"));
               String stringRead = reader.readLine();
               while(stringRead != null) {
                    stringRead = reader.readLine();  // read next line
                    if (stringRead.equals(word)) {
                         acceptable = true;
                         reader.close();
               reader.close();
          catch (Exception ex) {
          return acceptable;
     } When I run the program from the terminal (either by typing "java Anagrams" or "firefox Launcher.html"), everything works fine, but if I run it by double-clicking the Launcher.html icon, it fails to read the data files. Everything else in the program works normally, and it doesn't make any difference whether I use a web browser, or appletviewer. Unfortunately, I can't tell what exception is thrown, because the output isn't sent to a terminal.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

It doesn't answer you question but the logic of that method is incorrect: it never checks the first String in the file and it always reads all the words no matter whether or not the word was found already. Make that:
     public boolean checkDictionary (String word) {
          boolean acceptable = false;
          try {
               BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("Data/"+word.length()+"lw.txt"));
               String stringRead = reader.readLine();
               for (String stringRead= reader.readLine(); stringRead != null; stringRead= reader.readLine()) {
                    if (stringRead.equals(word)) {
                         acceptable = true;
                         break;
                 reader.close();
            catch (Exception ex) {
          return acceptable;
     } kind regards,
Jos