DRAFT KB-XXXX Unable to create envelope error when invoking a Process Model as a Web Service (WSDL)

Symptoms

The following error is seen in the application server log:

XXXX-XX-XX XX:XX:XX,XXX [ajp-/X.X.X.X:XXXX-XX] ERROR com.appiancorp.process.webservices.pmserver.PMServletDelegate - 
An unknown error occurred while consuming the PM WS for the service: 
com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.SOAPExceptionImpl: Unable to create envelope from given source: 
	at com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.soap.EnvelopeFactory.createEnvelope(EnvelopeFactory.java:127)
	at com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.soap.ver1_1.SOAPPart1_1Impl.createEnvelopeFromSource(SOAPPart1_1Impl.java:83)
	at com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.soap.SOAPPartImpl.getEnvelope(SOAPPartImpl.java:143)
	at com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.soap.MessageImpl.getSOAPBody(MessageImpl.java:1366)
	at com.appiancorp.process.webservices.pmserver.PMServletDelegate.doPost(PMServletDelegate.java:107)
	at com.appiancorp.process.webservices.pmserver.PMServletDelegate.handleRequest(PMServletDelegate.java:70)
	at com.appiancorp.process.webservices.pmserver.PMServlet.doGet(PMServlet.java:13)
	at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:734)
Caused by: javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; Premature end of file.
	at org.apache.xalan.transformer.TransformerIdentityImpl.transform(TransformerIdentityImpl.java:502)
	at com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.util.transform.EfficientStreamingTransformer.transform
           (EfficientStreamingTransformer.java:414)
	at com.sun.xml.messaging.saaj.soap.EnvelopeFactory.createEnvelope(EnvelopeFactory.java:118)
	... 89 more
Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; Premature end of file.
	at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1216)
	at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:555)
	at org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLFilterImpl.parse(XMLFilterImpl.java:357)
	at org.apache.xalan.transformer.TransformerIdentityImpl.transform(TransformerIdentityImpl.java:485)
	... 91 more

Cause

This message indicates this is not an issue with the model published as a web service; it is an issue with a malformed SOAP Envelope that the invoker/client is sending to the model in order to invoke it as a Web Service. This is failing in the getEnvelope() method, which suggests the request sent is malformed; an XML Validator can confirm it is a valid SOAP envelope.

This could also be due to the service sending a large amount of data and the web server is truncating it for security reasons resulting in an invalid XML.

Action

Workaround

Affected Versions

This article applies to all versions of Appian.

Last Reviewed: February 2018