HTTP Status 500 Error java.lang.NullPointerException on BO 4.0 SP2

[Former Member]

Hello,

we installed BO 4.0 SP2 with Tomcat 6 on Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit.

After installation it is not possible to open the CMC, BI-Launchpad or LCM in a browser. It presents the following error page:

_______________

HTTP Status 500 -

type Exception report

message

description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

java.lang.NullPointerException

com.businessobjects.servletbridge.customconfig.Config.<init>(Config.java:37)

com.businessobjects.servletbridge.customconfig.ConfigReader.getConfig(ConfigReader.java:274)

com.businessobjects.pinger.TimeoutManagerFilter.getSessionState(TimeoutManagerFilter.java:192)

com.businessobjects.pinger.TimeoutManagerFilter.doFilter(TimeoutManagerFilter.java:75)

note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/6.0.24 logs.

Apache Tomcat/6.0.24

_______________

This is the error message from Tomcat log:

28.09.2011 08:56:46 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve invoke

SCHWERWIEGEND: Servlet.service() for servlet equinoxbridgeservlet threw exception

java.lang.NullPointerException

at com.businessobjects.servletbridge.customconfig.Config.<init>(Config.java:37)

at com.businessobjects.servletbridge.customconfig.ConfigReader.getConfig(ConfigReader.java:274)

at com.businessobjects.pinger.TimeoutManagerFilter.getSessionState(TimeoutManagerFilter.java:192)

at com.businessobjects.pinger.TimeoutManagerFilter.doFilter(TimeoutManagerFilter.java:75)

at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235)

at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)

at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233)

at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191)

at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:127)

at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102)

at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)

at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:298)

at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:852)

at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:588)

at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:489)

at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

The installation of 'SBOP BI Platform Servers 4.0 SP02 Patch 5' didn't affect this problem, it still has the same error.

BusinessObjects XI 3.1 is running without problems on that server.

Any help would be very appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[Former Member]

The suggestion by Lukas worked for me. Make sure you leave BOBJ alone durring the 15min span while the files are being deployed. No need to reinstall tomcat.

[Former Member]

I have no idea why...  Maybe one of the OS Support folks installed a patch on the OS, but ALL of our web apps went down and I tried everything to bring them back.  Nothing worked until I saw this thread and decided to bite the bullet and do as Matthias stated above.

I went to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features and right clicked on SAPBusinessObjects adn selected the Uninstall /Change.

I chose the "fix" and ran it.  It tool a while, but it worked.  All my apps are back and the CMS is fine!

I hope this doesn't happen again. 

Thanks for the idea!  I really apreaciate it...

[peter_baumgartner]

Hello,

I had the same error after wdeploy crashed once - now I'm unable to open the tab folder: AUTHENTICATION --> SAP --> ROLE IMPORT

I already restarted tomcat, server, redeployed everything via gui,..?

[peter_baumgartner]

Thank you Matthias!

The same procedure worked for my error. But if anyone has a similar problem: When trying to reinstall Tomcat, the installer denied my connection information for the existing host. The solution was to replace my CMS Name (i used the host name) with "LOCALHOST" and everything worked.

best regards, Peter

[Former Member]

I had same issue today. Solution is simple:

remove or rename and backup Tomcat web directory when Tomcat is stopped. Then start Tomcat, wait 15 minutes until all stuff get redeployed to WORKDIR and CMC, BI Launchpad should work normally.

P:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\Tomcat6\work\Catalina\localhost

Regards,

Lukas Kostrab

[former_member184512]

Hi,

I am facing the same Issue, Could you help me how to solve the issue.

Now we are using SAP BO BI 4.0 SP2 Patch6

[bill_winters]

My suggestion would be un-install and re-install it. It's time consuming but has always resolved this for me.

[former_member184512]

Hi,

Thanks for response. It used to work for us till yesterday but all of sudden today it ended up with error. So we are not able to find the exact reason for this error.

Does any one know why it happens.

If I find any other best solution, then for sure we will re-install it.

[marie_renneke]

Hello together,

I could fix this issue without any reinstalling of tomcat. I had the same problem after installtion of Patch 9 of SP2 for BOE 4.0.

Directly after the installation I changed the session-timeout parameter in some web.xml's because it was requested by our customer. Because I wanted to have a good documentation of those changes in the web.xml's I created a bigger comment in these files.

First I got 404 errors after that - to solve this I followed Knowledgebase article [1639813|https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap/support/notes/1639813] but first it didn't help.

So the before mentioned bigger comments seemed to be a problem (or maybe the special characters in there) because after shortening these comments and restarting SIA and Tomcat the 404 error disappeared and suddenly the above described 500 error occured.

After that I changed the Tomcat's localhost directory to localhost.old during downtime of Tomcat (as recommended by Lukas Kostrab). localhost was newly created but it didn't help either.

So last but not least I redeployed tomcat following article [1639813|https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap/support/notes/1639813] (wdeploy.bat tomcat6 u2013DAPP=BOE deploy) and started Tomcat and SIA again. I decided to wait a little bit longer with trying to start CMC - maybe 15min - and suddenly it worked.

So in conclusion I would say:

- check any changes you made in any config-files (like e.g. web.xml) and shorten them or remove special characters

- stop SIA and Tomcat

- rename localhost directory (or copy and remove) so it will be recreated at startup of Tomcat

- if that doesn't help check tomcat config according to article [1639813|https://websmp230.sap-ag.de/sap/support/notes/1639813] and redeploy tomcat as mentioned in that arcitle and be a little bit patient

Hope this might help some of you.

Best wishes

Marie

[Former Member]

I had the same problem after applying patch 1 to Data Services 4 on my BOBJ 4.0 SP4 server - HTTP 500.  Everything had been fine up to patch application.  I have a distributed system with BOBJ server managing DS.

I renamed the Tomcat directory localhost to localhost old after stopping Tomcat.  Starting Tomcat and SIA - waited the 15 minutes and voila!  It worked.  My system is back.  Thanks so much Lukas!

Marji McClain

[Former Member]

Tomcat reinstallation solved the problem.

[Former Member]

How did you go about re-installing Tomcat? I got this exact same error on the BI and CMC web apps after applying SP02 patch 6. Tried running wdeploy GUI and redeploying the apps but it did not fix. Uninstalling patch 6 did not fix.

[Former Member]

Hello Bill,

I started the BO 4.0 setup (not one of the installed sp setups) using the windows control panel (programs and features). There you have the option to edit the existing installation. I unchecked web tier including tomcat. After deinstallation, which takes some time, I again started the setup and added the web tier including tomcat again.

Matthias

[Former Member]

Thanks Matthias,

What fixed it for me was to un-install, reboot, reinstall patch 6, reboot, then re-apply my custom configs and restart Tomcat.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I guess you cannot install BO 4.0 on the same server where you have BO 3.1.

Can you please try installing it on a different server and check.

Regards,

Sanjay

[Former Member]

SAP has this so called side-by-side installation in his "Business Intelligence Platform Upgrade Guide" for BO 4.0. Therefore I don't think that it is unpossible to have 4.0 and 3.1 on the same server for the time of the migration.

We want to upgrade from 3.1 to 4.0 and use the same hardware for the 4.0 installation.

The 4.0 installation worked without problems and the Upgrade-Management-Tool copied all the content from 3.1 to 4.0.

[former_member136842]

Hi,

i would recommend you re- deploy your web applications on your BI4 installation using wdeploy.

Regards

-Seb.