Yesterday I have got an error, when I tried to connect OOo 2.1(32-bit) on my SuSE 10.2-64-bit-box with a Java Runtime Environment(JRE). There was a Java-Sun-1.4.2-RPM installed on that machine. OOo wasn't able to verify this JRE neither automatically nor manual. I get the same result after update to Sun-Java-1.5.0.
Because I get the hint it could be a 64-bit-trouble I downloaded and installed manual with rpm -ivh the 32-bit-version. Afterwards OOo identified a JRE (the 32-bit). Now the assistants worked fine (after the obligatory restart of OOo).