Question

What could be causing ColdFusion to throw a “java.lang.NullPointerException: null” error when consuming a web service?

To any other computer the web service exists and works perfectly. But there is something about this installation of ColdFusion that’s causing the error. I’ve tried uninstalling and re-installing both IIS and ColdFusion with no avail.

I’ve even tried soapUI on the server which works fine. Not sure if it’s a ColdFusion/IIS issue.

Occurs using or CreateObject

Server OS: Windows Server 2008
CF Version: 9.0
IIS Version: 7.5

I’ve exhausted all ideas thrown at me so far. Any Help would be appreciated.

Stack Trace for anyone interested

    at cftest2ecfm526089628.runPage(C:\inetpub\wwwroot\....cfm:21) at    cftest2ecfm526089628.runPage(C:\inetpub\wwwroot\.....cfm:21)

    java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.apache.axis.client.Service.getEngineConfiguration(Service.java:801)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Service.getAxisClient(Service.java:143)
    at org.apache.axis.client.Service.(Service.java:152)
    at com.media.modules.ws.AcfwsServiceLocator.(AcfwsServiceLocator.java:12)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Class.java:355)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:308)
    at coldfusion.xml.rpc.XmlRpcServiceImpl$4.run(XmlRpcServiceImpl.java:372)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at coldfusion.xml.rpc.XmlRpcServiceImpl.registerWebService(XmlRpcServiceImpl.java:368)
    at coldfusion.xml.rpc.XmlRpcServiceImpl.getWebService(XmlRpcServiceImpl.java:496)
    at coldfusion.xml.rpc.XmlRpcServiceImpl.getWebServiceProxy(XmlRpcServiceImpl.java:450)
    at coldfusion.xml.rpc.WebServiceProxyFactory.getProxy(WebServiceProxyFactory.java:22)
    at coldfusion.runtime.ProxyFactory.getProxy(ProxyFactory.java:65)
    at coldfusion.runtime.CFPage.createObjectProxy(CFPage.java:4949)
    at coldfusion.runtime.CFPage.CreateObject(CFPage.java:4920)
    at coldfusion.runtime.CFPage.CreateObject(CFPage.java:4861)
    at coldfusion.runtime.CFPage.CreateObject(CFPage.java:4839)
    at coldfusion.runtime.CFPage.CreateObject(CFPage.java:4796)
    at cftest2ecfm526089628.runPage(C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ACF\TestStreaming\test.cfm:21)
    at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:231)
    at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:416)
    at coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(CfincludeFilter.java:65)
    at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:363)
    at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:48)
    at coldfusion.filter.MonitoringFilter.invoke(MonitoringFilter.java:40)
    at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:87)
    at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:70)
    at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28)
    at coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:38)
    at coldfusion.filter.NoCacheFilter.invoke(NoCacheFilter.java:46)
    at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:38)
    at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22)
    at coldfusion.filter.CachingFilter.invoke(CachingFilter.java:53)
    at coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:200)
    at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet.service(BootstrapServlet.java:89)
    at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:86)
    at coldfusion.monitor.event.MonitoringServletFilter.doFilter(MonitoringServletFilter.java:42)
    at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapFilter.doFilter(BootstrapFilter.java:46)
    at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:94)
    at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.service(FilterChain.java:101)
    at jrun.servlet.ServletInvoker.invoke(ServletInvoker.java:106)
    at jrun.servlet.JRunInvokerChain.invokeNext(JRunInvokerChain.java:42)
    at jrun.servlet.JRunRequestDispatcher.invoke(JRunRequestDispatcher.java:286)
    at jrun.servlet.ServletEngineService.dispatch(ServletEngineService.java:543)
    at jrun.servlet.jrpp.JRunProxyService.invokeRunnable(JRunProxyService.java:203)
    at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$DownstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:320)
    at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$ThreadThrottle.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:428)
    at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$UpstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:266)
    at jrunx.scheduler.WorkerThread.run(WorkerThread.java:66)

Answer 1

Gave up trying to invoke the web service properly in ColdFusion. Instead I wrote a small soap caller component that sends a request to the target URL with the correct soap headers/calls. If anyone wants the code it’s below. I still find it really odd that it didn’t work, I even checked in ASP on the same server which worked without problems.

<cfcomponent namespace="soapLib">
    <cffunction name="soapRequest" returnType="string" returnFormat="plain" hint="Consume a SOAP webservice from the given URL with the given function and arguments.">
    <cfargument name="wsdlUrl" type="string" hint="URL of the web service to consume including ?wsdl at the end.">
    <cfargument name="serviceNs" type="string" hint="The namespace of the web service, needed to complete a webservice properly.">
    <cfargument name="funcName" type="string" hint="The function to call when consuming the web service.">
    <cfargument name="args" type="array" hint="The arguments to parse to the web service.">
    <cfset i=0>
    <cfset soapArgs = ''>
    <cfloop array="#args#" index="arg">
        <cfset soapArgs &= '<arg#i#>#arg#</arg#i#>'>
        <cfset i++>
    </cfloop>
    <cfset soap = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <SOAP-ENV:Body>
        <m:#funcName# xmlns:m="#serviceNs#">
            #soapArgs#
        </m:#funcName#>
    </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>'>
        <cfhttp url="#wsdlUrl#" method="post">
            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="Content-Type" value="text/xml">
            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="SOAPAction" value="#funcName#">
            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="content-length" value="#len(soap)#">
            <cfhttpparam type="header" name="charset" value="utf-8">
            <cfhttpparam type="xml" name="message" value="#trim(soap)#">
        </cfhttp>
        <cfif not IsXML(cfhttp.fileContent)>
            <cfset return = false>
        <cfelse>
            <cfset xml = XmlParse(cfhttp.fileContent)>
            <cfset return = xml['S:Envelope']['S:Body']['ns2:#funcName#Response']['return']['XmlText']>
        </cfif>
        <cfreturn return>
    </cffunction>
</cfcomponent>