Comment 10 for bug 657048

The /usr/bin/jvisualvm startup script (around line 13) is looking for: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk :
sv@ubu:~$ grep -n /usr/lib/jvm /usr/bin/jvisualvm
13:for j in /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun; do

And, assuming the openjdk-6-jdk package is already installed (sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk), there is no link in /usr/lib/jvm for /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk:
sv@ubu:~$ ls /usr/lib/jvm
java-1.6.0-openjdk-amd64 java-6-openjdk-amd64 java-6-openjdk-common

#Here's what worked for us:
So, to match things up and make the program work, simply create a symlink:
sv@ubu:~$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk

Note: I am using Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit version, so you may have to adjust your symlink accordingly.