Unable to locate JOptionPane in AWT Hierarchy

I am unable to find JOptionPane when testing a Java swing applet.

Here is the code that executes the swing component from the Swing applet:
int choose = JOptionPane.showOptionDialog(null, "Click Yes to confirm the commit",
"Click Yes to confirm the commit", JOptionPane.DEFAULT_OPTION, JOptionPane.WARNING_MESSAGE, null, options,
options[0]);

// int choose = JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(null,
// "Click Yes to confirm the commit.", "Click Yes to confirm the commit",
// JOptionPane.YES_NO_OPTION);
// if (choose == JOptionPane.YES_OPTION){
if (choose == YesOption)

{ da.commit(); // cbDraw.log("commit."); }

Here is my FEST test code that tries to locate it:
JOptionPaneFixture option_pane = m_navigator.optionPane();

public JOptionPaneFixture optionPane()

{ return frame.optionPane(); }

/**

{@inheritDoc} */
public JOptionPaneFixture optionPane() { return optionPane(DEFAULT_DIALOG_LOOKUP_TIMEOUT); }

/** {@inheritDoc}

*/
public JOptionPaneFixture optionPane(Timeout timeout)

{ TypeMatcher matcher = new TypeMatcher(JOptionPane.class, requireShowing()); String description = "option pane to be found using matcher " + matcher; ComponentFoundCondition condition = new ComponentFoundCondition(description, robot.finder(), matcher); pause(condition, timeout); return new JOptionPaneFixture(robot, (JOptionPane)condition.found()); }

Here is the error I get:
Error (org.fest.swing.exception.WaitTimedOutError: Timed out waiting for option pane to be found using matcher org.fest.swing.core.TypeMatcher[type=javax.swing.JOptionPane, requireShowing=true])

NOTE 1: Strangely enough though it may seem, I am able to find a JOptionPane only when the Swing applet launches the component like the following unlike the one stated above:
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog((Component) cbDraw, "need to input a numerical value between high and low!");

Not sure if this is of any significance or not but it's worth mentioning.

NOTE 2: Also I'm not certain whether this issue has anything to do with owner less windows (parent less windows) or the AWT hierarchy state. I've also tried a GenericTypeMatcher search as well. The component does not even show up when dumping out the hierarchy in the logs. Please advise.