This doesn't work in JR 6.0.3, even though it did in 5.6.1. I tested additionally with this code: ************************************************** public static void main(String[] args) { System.out.println("Starting img test"); String b64img = "her goes image encoded in base64"; try ( java.io.InputStream is = new java.io.ByteArrayInputStream(new sun.misc.BASE64Decoder().decodeBuffer(b64img)); ) { java.awt.image.BufferedImage bi = javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(is); System.out.println("Read image: "+bi); } catch (Throwable t) { System.err.println("Error: "+t); } } ************************************************** And it works fine. I have Java 8 x86_64 running on Windows 7 x86_64.