Strange "local part cannot be null when creating a QName" error

[Nelis]

Hello,

I'm developing a web service with Spring-WS 1.0-RC3-20070810.014637-23, running on Tomcat 5.5 / Sun JDK 1.4.2.

The web service works well, but I have added a PayloadValidatingInterceptor for the request and the response. Now when I run the web service with a invalid request I have :

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: local part cannot be 'null' when creating a QName
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:487)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doPost(FrameworkServlet.java:440)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:710)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803)
root cause java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: local part cannot be 'null' when creating a QName
    javax.xml.namespace.QName.<init>(Unknown Source)
    javax.xml.namespace.QName.<init>(Unknown Source)
    org.apache.axis.message.PrefixedQName.<init>(PrefixedQName.java:30)
    org.apache.axis.message.MessageElement.getElementName(MessageElement.java:1504)
    org.springframework.ws.soap.saaj.Saaj12Implementation.getName(Saaj12Implementation.java:68)
    org.springframework.ws.soap.saaj.SaajSoapMessage.toString(SaajSoapMessage.java:212)
    java.lang.String.valueOf(String.java:2131)
    java.lang.StringBuffer.append(StringBuffer.java:370)
    org.springframework.ws.server.MessageDispatcher.receive(MessageDispatcher.java:168)
    org.springframework.ws.transport.support.WebServiceMessageReceiverObjectSupport.handleConnection(WebServiceMessageReceiverObjectSupport.java:86)
    org.springframework.ws.transport.http.WebServiceMessageReceiverHandlerAdapter.handle(WebServiceMessageReceiverHandlerAdapter.java:56)
    org.springframework.ws.transport.http.MessageDispatcherServlet.doService(MessageDispatcherServlet.java:157)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:475)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doPost(FrameworkServlet.java:440)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:710)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803) 

Apparently the exception occurs in MessageDispatcher.receive at this line :

logger.debug("MessageDispatcher with name '" + beanName + "' sends response [" +
                        messageContext.getResponse() + "] for request [" + messageContext.getRequest() + "]"); 

when it tries to toString() a WebServiceMessage.

I have tried to follows step by step in debug mode to see which message is failing but in debug mode, the code works () and the service returns :

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <soapenv:Body>
    <soapenv:Fault>
      <faultcode>soapenv:Client</faultcode><faultstring>Validation error</faultstring>
      <faultactor></faultactor>
      <detail><spring-ws:ValidationError xmlns:spring-ws="http://springframework.org/spring-ws">cvc-pattern-valid: Value 'John' is not facet-valid with respect to pattern '[A-Z][A-Z][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]' for type 'NationalNumber'.</spring-ws:ValidationError><spring-ws:ValidationError xmlns:spring-ws="http://springframework.org/spring-ws">cvc-type.3.1.3: The value 'John' of element 'ns1:NNR' is not valid.</spring-ws:ValidationError></detail>
    </soapenv:Fault>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope> 

I imagine it should be a classpath conflict somewhere but I can't find it ... Has somebody already met this issue ??

Thanks.

[Nelis]

Ok I have done some more investigations.

Here is the call stack just before it crashes because the values passed to PrefixedQName are all null :

Thread [http-8080-Processor24] (Suspended (breakpoint at line 30 in PrefixedQName))
    PrefixedQName.<init>(String, String, String) line: 30
    SOAPFault(MessageElement).getElementName() line: 1504
    Saaj12Implementation.getName(SOAPElement) line: 68
    SaajSoapMessage.toString() line: 212
    String.valueOf(Object) line: 2131
    StringBuffer.append(Object) line: 370
    SoapMessageDispatcher(MessageDispatcher).receive(MessageContext) line: 168
    WebServiceMessageReceiverHandlerAdapter(WebServiceMessageReceiverObjectSupport).handleConnection(WebServiceConnection, WebServiceMessageReceiver) line: 86
    WebServiceMessageReceiverHandlerAdapter.handle(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse, Object) line: 56
    MessageDispatcherServlet.doService(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse) line: 157
    MessageDispatcherServlet(FrameworkServlet).processRequest(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse) line: 475
    MessageDispatcherServlet(FrameworkServlet).doPost(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse) line: 440
    MessageDispatcherServlet(HttpServlet).service(HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse) line: 710
    MessageDispatcherServlet(HttpServlet).service(ServletRequest, ServletResponse) line: 803
    ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ServletRequest, ServletResponse) line: 269
    ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ServletRequest, ServletResponse) line: 188
    StandardWrapperValve.invoke(Request, Response) line: 210
    StandardContextValve.invoke(Request, Response) line: 174
    StandardHostValve.invoke(Request, Response) line: 127
    ErrorReportValve.invoke(Request, Response) line: 117
    StandardEngineValve.invoke(Request, Response) line: 108
    CoyoteAdapter.service(Request, Response) line: 151
    Http11Processor.process(InputStream, OutputStream) line: 870
    Http11Protocol$JmxHttp11ConnectionHandler(Http11BaseProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler).processConnection(TcpConnection, Object[]) line: 665
    PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(Socket, TcpConnection, Object[]) line: 528
    LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.runIt(Object[]) line: 81
    ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run() line: 685
    ThreadWithAttributes(Thread).run() line: 534 

In SOAPFault(MessageElement).getElementName() line: 1504

this= SOAPFault (id=1330)
_isDirty= true
_isRoot= true
attributes= NullAttributes (id=1276)
children= ArrayList (id=1332)
context= null
detail= Detail (id=1333)
document= null
encodingStyle= null
endEventIndex= -1
fault= AxisFault (id=1334)
fixupDeserializer= null
href= null
id= null
locale= null
message= SOAPEnvelope (id=1323)
name= null
namespaces= null
namespaceURI= null
objectValue= null
parent= SOAPBody (id=1319)
prefix (NodeImpl)= null
prefix (SOAPFault)= null
qNameAttrs= null
recorder= null
startContentsIndex= 0
startEventIndex= 0
textRep= null
typeQName= null

Then I click on the upper call :

In Saaj12Implementation.getName(SOAPElement) line: 68

element= SOAPFault (id=1268)
_isDirty= false
_isRoot= true
attributes= NullAttributes (id=1276)
children= ArrayList (id=1277)
context= null
detail= Detail (id=1278)
document= null
encodingStyle= null
endEventIndex= -1
fault= AxisFault (id=1279)
fixupDeserializer= null
href= null
id= null
locale= null
message= SOAPEnvelope (id=192)
name= "Fault"
namespaces= null
namespaceURI= "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
objectValue= null
parent= SOAPBody (id=183)
prefix (NodeImpl)= null
prefix (SOAPFault)= null
qNameAttrs= null
recorder= null
startContentsIndex= 0
startEventIndex= 0
textRep= null
typeQName= null

Then back on SOAPFault(MessageElement).getElementName() line: 1504

this= SOAPFault (id=1330)
_isDirty= false
_isRoot= true
attributes= NullAttributes (id=1276)
children= ArrayList (id=1332)
context= null
detail= Detail (id=1333)
document= null
encodingStyle= null
endEventIndex= -1
fault= AxisFault (id=1334)
fixupDeserializer= null
href= null
id= null
locale= null
message= SOAPEnvelope (id=1323)
name= "Fault"
namespaces= null
namespaceURI= "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
objectValue= null
parent= SOAPBody (id=1319)
prefix (NodeImpl)= null
prefix (SOAPFault)= null
qNameAttrs= null
recorder= null
startContentsIndex= 0
startEventIndex= 0
textRep= null
typeQName= null

Apparently, the fact that I click on SOAPFault(MessageElement).getElementName() does initialize something that is not .... Really really strange !!!!!

[Nelis]

I did more test.

I came at this conclusion :

- The error is caused by the generated SOAPFault (this SOAPFault contains the request validation erros) that has its variable name set to null.

- If I run the code directly it failes (because the name is null)

- If I inspect the SOAPFault in the debugger, the name is not null anymore, it succeed.

My conclusion is that the inspection of the SOAPFault triggers a method call (maybe the toString()) that init the name variable.

Now I don't know why it occurs ... And how to fix it.

[yklich]

Did you have any luck solving the problem? I'm having the exact same problem, and I can't figure out what's causing this...

DEBUG [2008-01-11 16:48:35,391] org.springframework.ws.transport.http.MessageDispatcherServlet  - Could not complete request
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: local part cannot be "null" when creating a QName
	at javax.xml.namespace.QName.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at javax.xml.namespace.QName.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at org.apache.axis.message.PrefixedQName.<init>(PrefixedQName.java:30)

Any help would be more than welcome,
Yannik

[Nelis]

No, never found a solution ... I just didn't use spring-ws to implements my webservices.

[v.tajzich]

I had the same problem. I've found that I had on my classpath axis libraries. I removed them and problem is gone...

[d.duehr]

Ok, the thread is quite old now. But the same problem cost me almost one day now and I regularly ended up to this thread when asking google for help.

Finally, Nelis was quite close. The source of the problem is an incorrect SOAP request, which body gets converted into a SOAPFault during processing.

If you did not provide a log4.properties file or if you set it to DEBUG level completely the Spring SoapMessageDispatcher tries to log the string representation of the request. But the request body was wrapped into a SOAPFault object which has it's uri, prefix and localname attributes set to null. This finally causes the "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: local part cannot be "null" when creating a QName" exception.

So just add this to your log4.properties:

# Print only messages of level INFO or above in the package org.springframework.ws.server.MessageTracing.sent
log4j.logger.org.springframework.ws.server.Message Tracing.sent=INFO

Or, probably as a quick starter, take this log4.properties as a whole:

# log4j properties
log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, default
log4j.appender.default=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleApp ender
log4j.appender.default.layout=org.apache.log4j.Pat ternLayout
log4j.appender.default.layout.ConversionPattern=%5 p [%t] (%F:%L) - %m%n

# Print only messages of level INFO or above in the package org.springframework.ws.server.MessageTracing.sent
log4j.logger.org.springframework.ws.server.Message Tracing.sent=INFO