Eclipse Galileo + Glassfish v3: JPADeployer NullPointerException on deploy

Question

I've created a very simple "Enterprise Application" project with about 7 entity beans and one stateless session bean. I've also configured an instance of Glassfish v3 to run as my application server. Unfortunately, when I attempt to publish the EAR to Glassfish, I'm getting the following response:

SEVERE: Exception while invoking class org.glassfish.persistence.jpa.JPADeployer prepare method
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.glassfish.persistence.jpa.JPADeployer.prepare(JPADeployer.java:104)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.ApplicationLifecycle.prepareModule(ApplicationLifecycle.java:644)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer.prepareBundle(EarDeployer.java:269)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer.access$200(EarDeployer.java:79)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer$1.doBundle(EarDeployer.java:131)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer$1.doBundle(EarDeployer.java:129)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer.doOnBundles(EarDeployer.java:197)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer.doOnAllTypedBundles(EarDeployer.java:206)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer.doOnAllBundles(EarDeployer.java:232)
    at org.glassfish.javaee.full.deployment.EarDeployer.prepare(EarDeployer.java:129)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.ApplicationLifecycle.prepareModule(ApplicationLifecycle.java:644)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.ApplicationLifecycle.deploy(ApplicationLifecycle.java:296)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.ApplicationLifecycle.deploy(ApplicationLifecycle.java:183)
    at org.glassfish.deployment.admin.DeployCommand.execute(DeployCommand.java:272)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$1.execute(CommandRunnerImpl.java:305)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl.doCommand(CommandRunnerImpl.java:320)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl.doCommand(CommandRunnerImpl.java:1176)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl.access$900(CommandRunnerImpl.java:83)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$ExecutionContext.execute(CommandRunnerImpl.java:1235)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$ExecutionContext.execute(CommandRunnerImpl.java:1224)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.AdminAdapter.doCommand(AdminAdapter.java:365)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.AdminAdapter.service(AdminAdapter.java:204)
    at com.sun.grizzly.tcp.http11.GrizzlyAdapter.service(GrizzlyAdapter.java:166)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.HK2Dispatcher.dispath(HK2Dispatcher.java:100)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:245)
    at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.invokeAdapter(ProcessorTask.java:791)
    at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.doProcess(ProcessorTask.java:693)
    at com.sun.grizzly.http.ProcessorTask.process(ProcessorTask.java:954)
    at com.sun.grizzly.http.DefaultProtocolFilter.execute(DefaultProtocolFilter.java:170)
    at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.executeProtocolFilter(DefaultProtocolChain.java:135)
    at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:102)
    at com.sun.grizzly.DefaultProtocolChain.execute(DefaultProtocolChain.java:88)
    at com.sun.grizzly.http.HttpProtocolChain.execute(HttpProtocolChain.java:76)
    at com.sun.grizzly.ProtocolChainContextTask.doCall(ProtocolChainContextTask.java:53)
    at com.sun.grizzly.SelectionKeyContextTask.call(SelectionKeyContextTask.java:57)
    at com.sun.grizzly.ContextTask.run(ContextTask.java:69)
    at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:330)
    at com.sun.grizzly.util.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:309)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:637)

Answer 1

This NPE looks somehow close to Issue # 11387 (it's not exactly the same issue but it could be the same cause... or another bug in the deployment subcomponent). My suggestions would thus be to:

1. Try with a recent nightly build (the mentioned issue has been fixed 3 days ago in the trunk and I didn't look closely enough to confirm it's completely unrelated).
2. Fill a new issue with the stack trace and your ear ideally if the issue is still there.