I'm seeing an SSL connection from a client running Java 6 fail with an exception like:

Caused by: javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: Remote host closed connection during handshake
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:882)
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.performInitialHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1188)
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1215)
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1199)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsClient.afterConnect(HttpsClient.java:434)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.https.AbstractDelegateHttpsURLConnection.connect(AbstractDelegateHttpsURLConnection.java:166)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.connect(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:133)
    ... 35 more
Caused by: java.io.EOFException: SSL peer shut down incorrectly
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.InputRecord.read(InputRecord.java:462)
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:863)
    ... 41 more

The server is a Tomcat 7-based app, running on Java 7, Linux, and on Amazon EC2, for what that's worth.

I've found a lot of suggestions on possible casues, including connecting accidentally to a non-SSL port, etc. I believe I've ruled it all out, mostly because the exact same client works when running Java 7 with no change. (OS X in both cases.)

Below I include the debug output from Java 6's and Java 7's SSL connection procedure. My question to experts is, does this suggest that some possible cipher or protocol setting, maybe a default in Java 7, could be enabled in Java 6 to make it work?

Java 6:

Allow unsafe renegotiation: false
Allow legacy hello messages: true
Is initial handshake: true
Is secure renegotiation: false
%% No cached client session
*** ClientHello, TLSv1
RandomCookie
java ssl handshake sslhandshakeexception
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