ObjectInputStream getting EOFException

What I'm attempting to do is read in a serialized object (in this case hashtable) from a file and add a new element to it and rewrite it back to the file with the updated hashtable, then later I will go back through and remove the elements from the hashtable in the temporary file when i don't need them in processing anymore.   I'm getting an EOFException when trying to read in the object.

Note: The first time it hits the EOFException, i was assuming that the hashtable had not been added to the file at that time so I add a new one.  But it seems to hit EOFException every time without pulling the hashtable, so in other words it's like it's writing a new hashtable everytime it's run.

FileInputStream filein = null;
FileOutputStream fileout = null;
ObjectOutputStream objout = null;
ObjectInputStream objin = null;
SecretKey key = null;

try {
         response.setContentType("text/html");
         out = response.getWriter();

         // create encryption key
         key = KeyGenerator.getInstance("DES").generateKey();
       
         // read in key file
         filein = new FileInputStream(filepath);
         fileout = new FileOutputStream(filepath);
         objout = new ObjectOutputStream(fileout);
         objin = new ObjectInputStream(filein);
       
         // read in hashtable of member ids and keys
         mem_keys = (Hashtable)objin.readObject();        
         mem_keys.put(member.member_id, key); // add the new member to the hashtable
         objout.writeObject(mem_keys); // write back out

         // init the DES encryptor
         DesEncrypter des = new DesEncrypter(key);
         if(password.compareTo(confirm) == 0) {
            // encrypt password using SecretKey DES encryptor
            member.password = des.encrypt(password);
         }
}
catch(EOFException e) {
        // to print the error to screen
        //out.println("<PRE>" + e.getMessage() + "<BR>");
        //e.printStackTrace(out);

        // since we are keeping only one hashtable in the file
        // and it's end of file, then no objects where found so create new hashtable to add to
        mem_keys = new Hashtable();
        mem_keys.put("" + member.member_id, key);
        try {
             objout.writeObject(mem_keys.clone());
        }
        catch(Exception ex) {
            out.println("<PRE>" + ex.getMessage() + "<BR>");
            ex.printStackTrace(out);
        }
}
catch(IOException e) {
        out.println("<PRE>" + e.getMessage() + "<BR>");
        e.printStackTrace(out);
}
catch(Exception e) {
        out.println("<PRE>" + e.getMessage() + "<BR>");
        e.printStackTrace(out);
}
     
// clean up
try {
        objin.close();
        filein.close();
        objout.flush();
        objout.close();
        fileout.close();
}
catch(Exception e) {
        out.println("<PRE>" + e.getMessage() + "<BR>");
        e.printStackTrace(out);
}

Any thoughts?  thanks