How to load an applet jar file?

Question

Hello everyone,
I have an applet that uses my own jar file and approximately 6 third party jar files. I set up jar indexing (jar -i) which will download the jar files when they are needed. All seems to work well, but now I want to manually load the jar files which I cannot get working.
When the applet starts, about 1/2 of the jar files are downloaded (because they are needed at startup). I then want to load the additional jar files in the background, after the gui is initialized. I have tried this using the below thread which is executed from within the applet's start method:
// Try to load additional jar files in background by loading a class from each jar file.
Thread loadClass = new Thread() {
  public void run() {
    System.out.println("Loading classes...");
    try {
      // Tried loading classes this way, doesn't work.
      getClass().getClassLoader().loadClass("pkg1.Class1");
      getClass().getClassLoader().loadClass("pkg2.Class2");
      getClass().getClassLoader().loadClass("pkg3.Class4");
      getClass().getClassLoader().loadClass("pkg4.Class4");
      /* Loading classes this way doesn't work either.
      Class.forName("pkg1.Class1");
      Class.forName("pkg2.Class2");
      Class.forName("pkg3.Class3");
      Class.forName("pkg4.Class4");
    catch(ClassNotFoundException e) {
      // First attempt to load a class (pkg1.Class1) throws exception.
      System.out.println("Can't find class: " + e.getMessage());
loadClass.start();As you can see from above I am trying to load a class from each of the jar files so that the jar files would load into memory/cache. Unfortunately, it cannot find the classes. These are the errors from the java console:
Loading classes...
Loading: pkg1.Class1
Connecting http://my.server.com/my_dir/pkg1/Class1.class with no proxy
Connecting http://my.server.com/my_dir/pkg1/Class1.class with cookie "JSESSIONID=some_big_long_char_list"
Can't find class: pkg1.Class1
So it appears the jar file is not being downloaded. When I take away the dynamic jar loading (removing the "jar -i" & adding them all to the applet archive list) the thread executes correctly. So I know the class names, etc, are correct. How does one load an applet jar file?
Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

Answer 1

The above error I posted was because I forgot to index the jar files. That is why it couldn't find the jar file. I thought I was getting farther along with my problem, but I apparently just forgot to index the jars. I am now getting the problem that I got yesterday...
The applet freezes/hangs when it hits the thread. The GUI never opens (even though I'm running this thread right after the gui shows). The java console quits responding and the applet just stays the grey screen. I also tried the invoke later that you suggested.
public void start() {
  // ...initialize gui...
  // Applet freezes and remains grey, also the java console freezes.
  javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
      System.out.println("Loading classes...");
      try {
        // When I comment out the below forName calls, the thread will still run evidenced through the done print statement.
        Class.forName("pkg1.Class1");
     Class.forName("pkg2.Class2");
     Class.forName("pkg3.Class3");
     Class.forName("pkg4.Class4");
        System.out.println("...Done loading classes");
      catch(Exception e)     {
        System.out.println("Can't find class: " + e.getMessage());
}