Forge 1.12 won't install. "exception in initializer error"

I ran 1.12 on the minecraft launcher first. Worked fine.

I've played on 1.17.1 as well.

1.12 and 1.17.1 fabric and vanilla 1.17.1 work fine.

I downloaded both the "latest" and "recommended" installers(not the windows installers) from the main forge website.

https://files.minecraftforge.net/net/minecraftforge/forge/index_1.12.html

I downloaded the "recommended" first and when the following steps didn't work, i tried with the "latest". so there was no mixing of files.

Double clicking the file brought up the loading hourglass for a split second but nothing else.

right-click open with java platform... does nothing except create a text document in the directory that says

"Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.ClientInstall.getSponsorMessage(ClientInstall.java:401)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.InstallerAction.getSponsorMessage(InstallerAction.java:60)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.InstallerPanel.updateFilePath(InstallerPanel.java:334)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.InstallerPanel.<init>(InstallerPanel.java:315)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.SimpleInstaller.launchGui(SimpleInstaller.java:164)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.SimpleInstaller.main(SimpleInstaller.java:51)
Caused by: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.MirrorData.buildMirrorList(MirrorData.java:84)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.MirrorData.<init>(MirrorData.java:63)
    at net.minecraftforge.installer.MirrorData.<clinit>(MirrorData.java:17)
    ... 6 more"
 

opening the jar file through the command prompt generates the same error in the command prompt as the above text document.

i tried jarfix, it seemed to work properly for converting the icons but the same error persists.

java version 8 update 261 (build 1.8.0_261-b12)

i then updated java to the newest version which is

version 8 update 301 (Build 1.8.0_301-b09)

Thank you for any help or advice.

-Pongosdaddy