I recently ran into an issue on Windows 7 64-bit where ADSM-ISM Launcher failed to connect to my ASAs. Launching the application from a shortcut, and attempting to connect resulted in the launcher halting on "Contacting the device. Please wait...". And waiting didn't help. Opening the java console revealed another error which didn't get me any useful results on Google:
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ClassCastException: sun.security.ssl.X509TrustManagerImpl cannot be cast to com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.X509ExtendedTrustManager
However, if I "re-installed" ASDM via the "dm-launcher.msi", the first time it was spawned by the installer, everything worked fine. Subsequent launches from the application shortcuts failed. A quick check with Process Explorer revealed the issue. The dm-launcher installer launched the java app using "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\javaw.exe", whereas the shortcut would use "C:\Windows\system32\javaw.exe".
The ultimate fix ended up being updating all my ASDM shortcuts to use "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\javaw.exe". Now everything is working great!
UPDATE 2/25/2013: So the pain continues with Java 7. If you have upgraded your JRE, you probably saw a recurrence of this issue. In that case, I recommend pointing your shortcut(s) directly to the version 1.6/6 JRE instead:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javaw.exe"
Hope this helps someone else out there.
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