Upgrade spring-flex from 1.0.3 to 1.5.2 causes NullPointerException

[mcguru]

Hi,

I have been trying to upgrade spring-flex 1.0.3 to 1.5.2 in order to check new features, i.e. Hibernate lazy fetching support in BlazeDS 4. I downloaded all necessary packages, changed dependencies in Maven for Spring (to 3.0.7), Hibernate (to 3.6.9) and Spring flex core (to 1.5.2). When I try to build and deploy application, I got NullPointerException which indicates cause in my domain class (at the end of stack trace):

SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name '_messageBrokerDefaultHandlerMapping': Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name '_messageBroker': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: MessageBroker initialization failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:527)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:580)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:895)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:425)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:276)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:197)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:47)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3972)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4467)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:791)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:771)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:546)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:637)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:563)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:498)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1277)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:321)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:785)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1045)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:443)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:519)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:581)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name '_messageBroker': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: MessageBroker initialization failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1420)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:288)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:190)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.isSingleton(AbstractBeanFactory.java:396)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.isSingleton(AbstractApplicationContext.java:1095)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.AbstractUrlHandlerMapping.registerHandler(AbstractUrlHandlerMapping.java:294)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping.registerHandlers(SimpleUrlHandlerMapping.java:129)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping.initApplicationContext(SimpleUrlHandlerMapping.java:103)
        at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport.initApplicationContext(ApplicationObjectSupport.java:119)
        at org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationObjectSupport.initApplicationContext(WebApplicationObjectSupport.java:72)
        at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport.setApplicationContext(ApplicationObjectSupport.java:73)
        at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.invokeAwareInterfaces(ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.java:106)
        at org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.postProcessBeforeInitialization(ApplicationContextAwareProcessor.java:85)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsBeforeInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:394)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1413)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
        ... 35 more
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: MessageBroker initialization failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
        at org.springframework.flex.core.MessageBrokerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(MessageBrokerFactoryBean.java:203)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1477)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1417)
        ... 54 more
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
        at com.educationathome.domain.Device.toString(Device.java:182)
        at java.lang.String.valueOf(String.java:2826)
        at java.lang.StringBuilder.append(StringBuilder.java:115)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.io.PropertyProxyUtils.getBeanPropertyNames(PropertyProxyUtils.java:71)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.io.PropertyProxyUtils.findPropertyNames(PropertyProxyUtils.java:80)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.io.SpringPropertyProxy.proxyFor(SpringPropertyProxy.java:85)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.io.AbstractAmfConversionServiceConfigProcessor.registerAmfProxies(AbstractAmfConversionServiceConfigProcessor.java:115)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.io.AbstractAmfConversionServiceConfigProcessor.processAfterStartup(AbstractAmfConversionServiceConfigProcessor.java:73)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.MessageBrokerFactoryBean.processAfterStart(MessageBrokerFactoryBean.java:315)
        at org.springframework.flex.core.MessageBrokerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(MessageBrokerFactoryBean.java:177)
        ... 56 more

I appreciate any supportive replies.

Thank you, Michal.

[mec]

Hi Michal,
I have got exactly the same problem, under the same conditions. Upgrading from spring-flex from 1.0.3 to 1.5.2 causes NullPointerException in one of our domain attribute.toString() methods. Same stack trace.

Did you find the cause, and a solution to this?