KB-1559 "java.lang.NullPointerException" error when deploying Appian using WebLogic 12.2.1.0.0 and later

Symptoms

After following Appian documentation on configuring WebLogic, the deployment of suite.ear fails and returns the following exception in the application server log, located at <WEBLOGIC_HOME>/<project_name>/domains/<domain_name>/servers/<server_name>/logs/<server_name>.log

<Failure occurred in the execution of deployment request with ID "XXX" for task "X" on [partition-name: DOMAIN]. Error is: "weblogic.application.ModuleException: java.lang.NullPointerException"
weblogic.application.ModuleException: java.lang.NullPointerException
 at weblogic.application.internal.ExtensibleModuleWrapper.prepare(ExtensibleModuleWrapper.java:114)

The WebLogic Administrator Console shows the following exception:

java.lang.NullPointerException

Cause

For WebLogic 12.2.1.0.0 and later, the JAR antlr-2.7.6.jar packaged with the ear file conflicts with the default class loader.

Action

Add the -DANTLR_USE_DIRECT_CLASS_LOADING=true parameter to the last occurrence of the JAVA_OPTIONS section in the setDomainEnv.bat|sh file to match the following:

set JAVA_OPTIONS=-Duser.timezone=GMT -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djavax.xml.soap.MessageFactory=weblogic.xml.saaj.MessageFactoryImpl -Djava.awt.headless=true -Xms512m -Xmx1024m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dweblogic.log.RedirectStdoutToServerLogEnabled=true -Dweblogic.log.RedirectStderrToServerLogEnabled=true -DANTLR_USE_DIRECT_CLASS_LOADING=true %JAVA_OPTIONS%

Affected Versions

This article applies to all versions of Appian using WebLogic 12.2.1.0.0 and later.

Last Reviewed: April 2018