Attaching Excel File To Email Results In Empty, Corrupt Attachment

Hello friends -

I've got an application running under Tomcat 5 / jdk1.5 that needs to send me emails with attachments from time to time.   Unfortunately, I cannot get the component to actually attach me an excel file; though for some reason, it does work in jdk1.6.  [Can't get jdk1.6 in my target environment in a meaningful timeframe].

Anyways, I have modified mailcap properties at run time to include the values that I needed in order to overcome the dreaded 'no DHC for handler application/octet-stream' exception, but after that, I do get an email with an attachment, but the attachment is blank (64B) and corrupt (Excel tries to launch, but complains about a bogus file).  This can't be difficult, and yet I'm struggling.  Here is my code:

You can see below my attempts to toggle back and forth between application/octet-stream and application/application/vnd.ms-excel.  No effect.  Am I using the wrong handler?  

*****************************************************
            
                  logger.error("*********************************");
                  logger.error("Our inbound attachment is of size: "+ attachment.length);
                  logger.error("*********************************");
                  
                  
                  MailcapCommandMap mc = (MailcapCommandMap)CommandMap.getDefaultCommandMap();
                  mc.addMailcap("text/html;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_html");
                  mc.addMailcap("text/xml;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_xml");
                  mc.addMailcap("text/plain;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.text_plain");
                  mc.addMailcap("multipart/*;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.multipart_mixed");
                  mc.addMailcap("application/vnd.ms-excel;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.multipart_mixed");
                  mc.addMailcap("application/octet-stream;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.multipart_mixed");
                  mc.addMailcap("message/rfc822;; x-java-content-handler=com.sun.mail.handlers.message_rfc822");
                  CommandMap.setDefaultCommandMap(mc);

                  
                  
                  // create a message
                  MimeMessage msg = new MimeMessage(session);
                  msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(sender));
                  InternetAddress[] address = new InternetAddress[toAddress.length];
                  for (int cntr = 0; cntr < toAddress.length; cntr++)
                  {
                        address[cntr] = new InternetAddress(toAddress[cntr]);
                  }
                  msg.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, address);
                  msg.setSubject(subject);

                  // create and fill the first message part
                  MimeBodyPart mbp1 = new MimeBodyPart();
                  mbp1.setText(message);

                  // create the second message part
                  MimeBodyPart mbp2 = new MimeBodyPart();

                  // attach the file to the message
                  //mbp2.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(attachment,"application/octet-stream"));
                  mbp2.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(attachment,"application/vnd.ms-excel"));                  
                  mbp2.setFileName(attachmentName);

                  // create the Multipart and add its parts to it
                  Multipart mp = new MimeMultipart();
                  mp.addBodyPart(mbp1);
                  mp.addBodyPart(mbp2);

                  // add the Multipart to the message
                  msg.setContent(mp);

                  // set the Date: header
                  msg.setSentDate(new Date());

                  // send the message
                  Transport.send(msg);

*****************************************************

Any insight is greatly appreciated. Someone please save my sanity.

brian