hi ebene

thanks for the tip and ref to the terminal problem.

So--since a new user has the same problem, at least we know the problem is probably in the system, not the user setup.

rkapsi and sberlin will know more about the java pieces required, but I don't know which java pieces (or fonts?) are required to draw the results. Hmmm--have you tried switching to a different theme (from the View Menu), and resizing each of the three panels of the search pane?

There were some problems with java updates on OS 10.3 (see http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/tn2099.html). You may want to try the test in terminal
java -version
and see if you get the "hot spot error" mentioned in the article.
Anyway, a java reinstall shouldn't hurt. Here's the link http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120309