You can try entering
java -version
javac -version
... at the command line on your Mac.
Don’t know about the file chooser, but I can give a few hints:
If you look at methods like
this one, it says “since 1.3”, but I can’t see similar tags about the methods you are using, so that is probably not the explanation. I would have thought that using the wrong version would produce Exceptions like
this (unlikely), or (more likely)
this, or
this.
Put a few println calls in that method, and display the state of the filter just before you return it. Confirm you are actually calling that method. Similarly just before you use the filter the first time. Confirm there are no changes to its state. Also print its hash code; since the
hashCode() method is “inherited from Object“, getting two different hash codes will make you suspicious you have not got the same reference.