JTabbedPane new tab problem

Question

I have a question regarding the TabbedPane, and forgive my ignorance as I've only just started. I am attempting to create a telnet/SSL application that allows you to open and close new tabs while the window's running, much like any tabbed web browser. I see there's a getTabCount() method, but it doesn't seem to work as I expected, or I'm using it incorrectly. Basically, each tab is supposed to have its own jTextArea to allow the user to connect to a remote host using a non-secure or secure method. The method that performs the action is below. If I put the "tabcount" int in the setTabComponentAt(), an index out of bounds error is returned in the stack trace and it appears to default to 0; if I put 0 in there as it is below, the stack trace goes away and the TabbedCommunicator class creates the tab with the close button. It just never seems to want to have more than one tab at a time. Any input is welcome and appreciated
private void performNewTab(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {                              
        int tabcount = jTabbedPane1.getTabCount();
        tabcount++;
        String title = "untitled_" + tabcount;
        jTabbedPane1.setTabLayoutPolicy(JTabbedPane.SCROLL_TAB_LAYOUT);
        jTabbedPane1.addTab(title, jScrollPane3);
        jTabbedPane1.setTabComponentAt(0,new TabbedCommunicator(jTabbedPane1));
        jTabbedPane1.getAccessibleContext().setAccessibleName("");
        return;
    }

Answer 1

Before posting, I was aware of how the tab components are accessed. For whatever reason, I left out the "tabcount--;" that was there after the title for the tab. If I adjusted the code to not hard-code to 0, I still received the same stack trace error (ArrayIndexOutOfBounds) as I did before the tabcount--; was added. It's as if the tabbed pane itself can only hold one tab, and in order to have multiple tabs, you've got to have multiple tabbed panes. The setTabComponentAT() method is being used to create the closeable tab. That portion of the code works great when the application is first started, as well as when the tab is closed, then the File->New Tab menu is accessed. But if the closeable tab is still there and File->New Tab is accessed, it persists at creating only one tab, and that tab's closeable feature doesn't work..
The stack trace is:
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1 >= 1
at java.util.Vector.elementAt(Vector.java:427)
at javax.swing.JTabbedPane.getTabComponentAt(JTabbedPane.java:2363)
at javax.swing.JTabbedPane.setTabComponentAt(JTabbedPane.java:2340)
at clientgui.JavaCommunicationsGUI.performNewTab(JavaCommunicationsGUI.java:398)
at clientgui.JavaCommunicationsGUI.access$100(JavaCommunicationsGUI.java:41)
at clientgui.JavaCommunicationsGUI$2.actionPerformed(JavaCommunicationsGUI.java:296)