TripleDES encrypting with vb.net and decrypting with java

Question

I'm creating an interface for two applications that will communicate using encrypted text in .txt files. vb.net app will encrypt and java will decrypt.

vb code

---

        Dim nget As String = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(sInputFilename)
        Dim textBytes As Byte() = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(nget)

        Dim Passphrase As String = sKey
        Dim UTF8 As New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()


        Dim HashProvider As New MD5CryptoServiceProvider()
        Dim TDESKey As Byte() = HashProvider.ComputeHash(UTF8.GetBytes(Passphrase))

        Dim TDESAlgorithm As New TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider()

        TDESAlgorithm.Key = TDESKey
        TDESAlgorithm.Mode = CipherMode.ECB
        TDESAlgorithm.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7

        Dim ms As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
        Dim encStream As New CryptoStream(ms, TDESAlgorithm.CreateEncryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write)
        encStream.Write(textBytes, 0, textBytes.Length)
        encStream.FlushFinalBlock()


        Dim strSave As String = Convert.ToBase64String(ms.ToArray())

        My.Computer.FileSystem.WriteAllText(sOutputFilename, strSave, False)

---

java code

---

public static void main(String[] args) {

        String codedtext = null;
        try {
            codedtext = readFile("ect.txt", StandardCharsets.UTF_8);                
        } catch (IOException e1) {
            e1.printStackTrace();
        }

        String decodedtext = null;
        try {
            decodedtext = _decrypt(codedtext,"abcdefgh");
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

}

private static String readFile(String path, Charset encoding) 
          throws IOException 
        {
          byte[] encoded = Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(path));
          return new String(encoded, encoding);
        }

private static String _encrypt(String message, String secretKey) throws Exception {

    MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");
    byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest(secretKey.getBytes("utf-8"));
    byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);

    SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
    Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/ECB/PKCS5Padding");
    cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key);

    byte[] plainTextBytes = message.getBytes("utf-8");
    byte[] buf = cipher.doFinal(plainTextBytes);
    byte [] base64Bytes = Base64.encodeBase64(buf);
    String base64EncryptedString = new String(base64Bytes);

    return base64EncryptedString;
}

private static String _decrypt(String encryptedText, String secretKey) throws Exception {

    byte[] message = Base64.decodeBase64(encryptedText.getBytes("utf-8"));
    //byte[] message = encryptedText.getBytes("utf-8");

    MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-1");
    byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest(secretKey.getBytes("utf-8"));
    byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
    SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");

    //Cipher decipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede");
    Cipher decipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/ECB/PKCS5Padding");
    decipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key);

    byte[] plainText = decipher.doFinal(message);

    return new String(plainText, "UTF-8");
}

but I'm getting the error

at java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -17
at org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64.isBase64(Base64.java:137)
at org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64.discardNonBase64(Base64.java:478)
at org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64.decodeBase64(Base64.java:374)
at Test.MyDec._decrypt(MyDec.java:74)
at Test.MyDec.main(MyDec.java:33) 

when decoding from base64