Problem with Portlet Preferences not loading

[Benny Hardage]

Hello,

In advance, I've read through the post at "https://coderanch.com/t/203948/Portals-Portlets/java/Portlet-Preferences-not-loading-portlet" and it didn't really come to a defining conclusion.

I have a portlet definition that looks like the following:

<portlet id="test">
    <portlet-name>Test</portlet-name>
    <display-name>Test</display-name>
    <description>Some description</description>
    <portlet-class>main.MyClass</portlet-class>
    <expiration-cache>-1</expiration-cache>
    <supports>
        <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
        <portlet-mode>EDIT</portlet-mode>
        <portlet-mode>VIEW</portlet-mode>
        <portlet-mode>HELP</portlet-mode>
    </supports>
    <supported-locale>en</supported-locale>
    <portlet-info>
        <title>Test</title>
        <short-title>Test</short-title>
        <keywords>Test</keywords>
    </portlet-info>
    <portlet-preferences>
        <preference>
            <name>flag</name>
            <value>-1</value>
        </preference>
        <preference>
            <name>flag2</name>
            <value>2</value>
        </preference>
    </portlet-preferences>
</portlet>

In the doView function of my class, I make a call to

request.getPreferences().getValue("flag", "")

but it returns the empty string. i.e. the flag preference isn't getting set for some reason.

OK, here's a little/big side note: Everything was working with Java 1.5.0_06 installed. I recently upgraded to the newest version of Java (1.6.0_16) and this started happening.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
B.J.