Registration webapp gives HTTP 500 error on some clients

[Samuli Seppänen]

Our ​user registration webapp (a.k.a. ​pwm) gives HTTP 500 errors on some clients, while working just fine for most.

The webapp is behind an Apache reverse proxy, but this does not seem to be the source of the problem; direct connections to the webapp through VPN have the same issue.

[svimik]

Full error text

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HTTP Status 500 -

type
Exception report

description
The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception
javax.servlet.ServletException?: org.apache.jasper.JasperException?: java.lang.NullPointerException?
password.pwm.SessionFilter?.doFilter(SessionFilter?.java:234)
sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor35.invoke(Unknown Source)
sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl?.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl?.java:43)
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?$1.run(SecurityUtil?.java:269)
java.security.AccessController?.doPrivileged(Native Method)
javax.security.auth.Subject.doAsPrivileged(Subject.java:537)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?.execute(SecurityUtil?.java:301)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?.doAsPrivilege(SecurityUtil?.java:243)

root cause
org.apache.jasper.JasperException?: java.lang.NullPointerException?
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper?.handleJspException(JspServletWrapper?.java:491)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper?.service(JspServletWrapper?.java:419)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet?.serviceJspFile(JspServlet?.java:313)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet?.service(JspServlet?.java:260)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet?.service(HttpServlet?.java:717)
sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor29.invoke(Unknown Source)
sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl?.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl?.java:43)
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?$1.run(SecurityUtil?.java:269)
java.security.AccessController?.doPrivileged(Native Method)
javax.security.auth.Subject.doAsPrivileged(Subject.java:537)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?.execute(SecurityUtil?.java:301)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?.doAsPrivilege(SecurityUtil?.java:162)
java.security.AccessController?.doPrivileged(Native Method)
password.pwm.SessionFilter?.doFilter(SessionFilter?.java:231)
sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor35.invoke(Unknown Source)
sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl?.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl?.java:43)
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?$1.run(SecurityUtil?.java:269)
java.security.AccessController?.doPrivileged(Native Method)
javax.security.auth.Subject.doAsPrivileged(Subject.java:537)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?.execute(SecurityUtil?.java:301)
org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityUtil?.doAsPrivilege(SecurityUtil?.java:243)

root cause
java.lang.NullPointerException?

note
The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/6.0.28 logs.

[Samuli Seppänen]

Reproduceable reliably using a Nokia N900 in one environment (both via GPRS and WLAN):

• Default browser
  • Direct access: failure
  • Access through reverse proxy: failure
• Firefox for N900
  • Direct access: failure
  • Access through reverse proxy: failure

Tomcat itself works fine using a direct VPN connection.

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Another N900 in another environment does not have any issues.

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Problem also encountered on a random Windows Vista/7 computer: unable to gather more details due to lack of access.

[Samuli Seppänen]

This problem is triggered by browser's locale/language settings, Complements to ecrist for guessing (correctly) the cause of this problem.

The following (Linux) locales are known to be affected:

• Finnish (fi_FI.UTF-8)

The following are probably affected:

• Russian

The following are not affected:

• English (C)
• Italian (it_IT.UTF-8)

Will try never versions of pwm to see if this has been fixed.

[Samuli Seppänen]

Using latest version of pwm (r258) seems to fix this issue. After basic tests I'm moving to this new version.

[Samuli Seppänen]

New version of pwm tested. All functionality seems to work properly. Closing.