[Php-java-bridge-users] Getting back null-object from new Java(...) - how to debug this?

[<php...@li...>]

I am using php/java bridge 3.1.8. I am having the interesting case that in
my PHP code I do a

      $classpath='...';
      java_require($classpath);
      try {
            $var=new Java('class.name.here');  // the constructor has no
paramete
      } catch(JavaException $exeption) {
            throw new Exception('Java-exception creating object of class
"class.name.here": '.$exeption);
      }
      if ($var) {
            // using the object...
      } else {
            echo 'got a null object... :-( ';
      }

Initially I was getting misc. ClassNotFound-Exceptions until I got my
classpath right. The classpath seems to be OK now, but now I am NOT getting
any JavaException but I get back a null-object, i.e. I am falling into the
echo ... statement in the above snippet.

How can I figure out, what's going wrong here and why???

Michael