Question

I have a problem using JSF 1.1 (MyFaces 1.1.8) on WebSphere. When deploying my application on Tomcat 5.5, this behavior does not apply and everything works fine.

When I try to read parameters from an URL posted back from Ogone (payment gateway), joining my JSF-session again (session still exists), the QueryString is not available through

final HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest)FacesContext
.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getRequest();

String qs = request.getQueryString(); // null on WebSphere, filled on Tomcat

To be a bit more complete, the query string looks something like this:

http://100.100.100.100:9080/my_app_context/pages/screen7.jsf?orderID=4208013442596271&currency=EUR&amount=60&PM=iDEAL&ACCEPTANCE=0000000000&STATUS=9&CARDNO=11-XXXX-11&ED=&CN=K%C3%A9m+Birdy&TRXDATE=08%2F06%2F12&PAYID=15879916&NCERROR=0&BRAND=iDEAL&COMPLUS=personID%3D01%26subscriptionID%3D02&IP=100.100.100.100&SHASIGN=9642468EE016BD49787B62EA7231124B3C24F9BBFC5B3B3B4D9E97D678979E57E5EED9B47D611441A6FCA2EB1D2DB87348C8111ACFF366A4E244106CCCFAFDA5

I’m thinking of some WebSphere webcontainer setting that might prevent the container from handling the external request properly. Or maybe there’s some classloading issue here, but I haven’t been able to track it down.

The stack trace on WebSphere is like this:

12-08-07 08:02:26 ERROR - 
java.lang.NullPointerException
at ... own code trying to getQueryString()...
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:79)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:618)
at org.apache.myfaces.el.PropertyResolverImpl.getProperty(PropertyResolverImpl.java:459)
at org.apache.myfaces.el.PropertyResolverImpl.getValue(PropertyResolverImpl.java:85)
at org.apache.myfaces.custom.security.SecurityContextPropertyResolver.getValue(SecurityContextPropertyResolver.java:101)
at org.apache.myfaces.el.ELParserHelper$MyPropertySuffix.evaluate(ELParserHelper.java:539)
at org.apache.commons.el.ComplexValue.evaluate(ComplexValue.java:145)
at org.apache.myfaces.el.ValueBindingImpl.getValue(ValueBindingImpl.java:386)
at javax.faces.component.UIOutput.getValue(UIOutput.java:118)
at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.RendererUtils.getValue(RendererUtils.java:267)
at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.RendererUtils.getStringValue(RendererUtils.java:226)
at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.html.HtmlTextRendererBase.renderOutput(HtmlTextRendererBase.java:69)
at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.renderkit.html.HtmlTextRendererBase.encodeEnd(HtmlTextRendererBase.java:57)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeEnd(UIComponentBase.java:799)
at javax.faces.webapp.UIComponentTag.encodeEnd(UIComponentTag.java:678)
at javax.faces.webapp.UIComponentTag.doEndTag(UIComponentTag.java:546)
at com.ibm._jsp._aanmeldScherm7._jspx_meth_h_outputText_1(_aanmeldScherm7.java:204)
at com.ibm._jsp._aanmeldScherm7._jspx_meth_f_subview_0(_aanmeldScherm7.java:1870)
at com.ibm._jsp._aanmeldScherm7._jspService(_aanmeldScherm7.java:85)
at com.ibm.ws.jsp.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:88)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1213)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1154)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:118)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain._doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:87)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:848)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:691)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:654)
at com.ibm.ws.wswebcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:526)
at com.ibm.wsspi.webcontainer.servlet.GenericServletWrapper.handleRequest(GenericServletWrapper.java:122)
at com.ibm.ws.jsp.webcontainerext.AbstractJSPExtensionServletWrapper.handleRequest(AbstractJSPExtensionServletWrapper.java:248)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebAppRequestDispatcher.include(WebAppRequestDispatcher.java:648)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspRuntimeLibrary.include(JspRuntimeLibrary.java:1042)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.include(PageContextImpl.java:484)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesUtilImpl.doInclude(TilesUtilImpl.java:99)
at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesUtil.doInclude(TilesUtil.java:135)
at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag.doInclude(InsertTag.java:760)
at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag$InsertHandler.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:892)
at org.apache.struts.taglib.tiles.InsertTag.doEndTag(InsertTag.java:462)
at com.ibm._jsp._defaultLayout2._jspx_meth_tiles_insert_2(_defaultLayout2.java:392)
at com.ibm._jsp._defaultLayout2._jspx_meth_h_form_0(_defaultLayout2.java:597)
at com.ibm._jsp._defaultLayout2._jspx_meth_f_view_0(_defaultLayout2.java:715)
at com.ibm._jsp._defaultLayout2._jspService(_defaultLayout2.java:92)
at com.ibm.ws.jsp.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:88)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1213)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1154)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:118)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain._doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:87)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:848)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:691)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:654)
at com.ibm.ws.wswebcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:526)
at com.ibm.wsspi.webcontainer.servlet.GenericServletWrapper.handleRequest(GenericServletWrapper.java:122)
at com.ibm.ws.jsp.webcontainerext.AbstractJSPExtensionServletWrapper.handleRequest(AbstractJSPExtensionServletWrapper.java:248)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebAppRequestDispatcher.forward(WebAppRequestDispatcher.java:325)
at org.apache.myfaces.context.servlet.ServletExternalContextImpl.dispatch(ServletExternalContextImpl.java:426)
at org.apache.myfaces.tomahawk.application.jsp.JspTilesViewHandlerImpl.dispatch(JspTilesViewHandlerImpl.java:236)
at org.apache.myfaces.tomahawk.application.jsp.JspTilesViewHandlerImpl.renderView(JspTilesViewHandlerImpl.java:222)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ViewHandlerWrapper.renderView(ViewHandlerWrapper.java:101)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ajax.AjaxViewHandler.renderView(AjaxViewHandler.java:221)
at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.RenderResponseExecutor.execute(RenderResponseExecutor.java:41)
at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(LifecycleImpl.java:146)
at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:147)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1213)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1154)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:145)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ajax.xmlfilter.BaseXMLFilter.doXmlFilter(BaseXMLFilter.java:75)
at org.ajax4jsf.framework.ajax.xmlfilter.BaseFilter.doFilter(BaseFilter.java:213)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.FilterInstanceWrapper.doFilter(FilterInstanceWrapper.java:190)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:130)
at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.filter.ExtensionsFilter.doFilter(ExtensionsFilter.java:301)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.FilterInstanceWrapper.doFilter(FilterInstanceWrapper.java:190)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:130)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.FilterInstanceWrapper.doFilter(FilterInstanceWrapper.java:190)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:130)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.FilterInstanceWrapper.doFilter(FilterInstanceWrapper.java:190)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:130)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain._doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:87)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:848)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:691)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:654)
at com.ibm.ws.wswebcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:526)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.CacheServletWrapper.handleRequest(CacheServletWrapper.java:90)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:764)
at com.ibm.ws.wswebcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:1478)
at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCChannelLink.ready(WCChannelLink.java:133)
at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleDiscrimination(HttpInboundLink.java:457)
at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleNewRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:515)
at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.processRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:300)
at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.ready(HttpInboundLink.java:271)
at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.sendToDiscriminators(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:214)
at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.complete(NewConnectionInitialReadCallback.java:113)
at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.AioReadCompletionListener.futureCompleted(AioReadCompletionListener.java:165)
at com.ibm.io.async.AbstractAsyncFuture.invokeCallback(AbstractAsyncFuture.java:217)
at com.ibm.io.async.AsyncChannelFuture.fireCompletionActions(AsyncChannelFuture.java:161)
at com.ibm.io.async.AsyncFuture.completed(AsyncFuture.java:136)
at com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler.complete(ResultHandler.java:196)
at com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler.runEventProcessingLoop(ResultHandler.java:751)
at com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler$2.run(ResultHandler.java:881)
at com.ibm.ws.util.ThreadPool$Worker.run(ThreadPool.java:1560)

If anyone could point me in the right direction, please.

WebSphere version is 6.1.0.43.

Answer 1

Ok, this might come in handy for others.

Diving deeper into WebSphere Application Server’s custom web container properties, I came accross this one:

Make query string available to the welcome file [Fix Pack 25 or later]

Typically, when a request is initially sent to the context root of the
application, the request is forwarded to a welcome file. If a query
string is included in an initial request, it is not available to the
welcome file if you included the request.getQueryString() attribute in
the welcome file. However, the query string is available to the
welcome file if you included the javax.servlet.forward.query_string
attribute in the welcome file.

If you need to use the request.getQueryString() attribute, instead of
the javax.servlet.forward.query_string attribute, to make the query
string available to the welcome file, add the
com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.provideQStringToWelcomeFile custom property to
your Web container configuration and set the property to true. The
default value for this property is false. Name Value
com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.provideQStringToWelcomeFile true

For WebSphere 6.1 these custom properties can be found here: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v6r1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.websphere.base.doc%2Finfo%2Faes%2Fae%2Frweb_custom_props.html

The clue is that once forwarding a request, the query string itself is stripped from the Request object, leaving room for “internal” query strings. The initial query string is still available using

request.getAttribute(“javax.servlet.forward.query_string”);

All a bit tricky, but our code is now robust and capable of running inside WebSphere and other servlet containers, as well as managing UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1 encoded query string parameters sent by Ogone.

Thanks for listening.