JBPM 6 Processes, the content of dataInputAssociation is missing sourceRef or targetRef

[ocramot]

I am porting my project from JBPM 5.4 to JBPM 6.0 RC2; in the previous version, I could build and deploy my processes without any problem. In the last version, though, whenever I try to open the Project Screen in the Authoring tab of the console, I get several istances of the following error in the log:

13:12:18,377 INFO  [stdout] (pool-19-thread-1) userServices:1

13:12:18,382 INFO  [stdout] (pool-19-thread-1) userServices:.metadata

13:12:18,382 INFO  [org.guvnor.common.services.builder.BuildChangeListener] (http--0.0.0.0-8082-4) Incremental build request received for: default://master@my-repository/my-project/src/main/resources/my-process.bpmn2 (updated).

13:12:18,391 INFO  [stdout] (pool-19-thread-1) userServices:1

13:12:18,412 INFO  [stdout] (pool-19-thread-1) userServices:.metadata

13:12:19,871 INFO  [org.guvnor.common.services.builder.BuildChangeListener] (pool-20-thread-1) Incremental build request being processed: default://master@my-repository-repository/my-project/src/main/resources//my-process.bpmn2 (updated).

13:12:21,402 ERROR [org.drools.core.xml.ExtensibleXmlParser] (pool-20-thread-1) (null: 562, 36): cvc-complex-type.2.4.b: The content of element 'bpmn2:dataInputAssociation' is not complete. One of '{"http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL":sourceRef, "http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL":targetRef}' is expected.

13:12:21,433 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1) java.lang.NullPointerException

13:12:21,439 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.jbpm.bpmn2.xml.TaskHandler.readDataInputAssociation(TaskHandler.java:90)

13:12:21,447 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.jbpm.bpmn2.xml.TaskHandler.handleNode(TaskHandler.java:64)

13:12:21,455 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.jbpm.bpmn2.xml.TaskHandler.end(TaskHandler.java:166)

13:12:21,463 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.core.xml.ExtensibleXmlParser.endElement(ExtensibleXmlParser.java:422)

13:12:21,471 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.endElement(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,479 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.impl.xs.XMLSchemaValidator.endElement(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,489 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.scanEndElement(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,498 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,510 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,520 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,529 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,536 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,543 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,552 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,560 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl.parse(Unknown Source)

13:12:21,569 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.core.xml.ExtensibleXmlParser.read(ExtensibleXmlParser.java:301)

13:12:21,579 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.core.xml.ExtensibleXmlParser.read(ExtensibleXmlParser.java:180)

13:12:21,588 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.jbpm.compiler.xml.XmlProcessReader.read(XmlProcessReader.java:46)

13:12:21,597 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.jbpm.compiler.ProcessBuilderImpl.addProcessFromXml(ProcessBuilderImpl.java:255)

13:12:21,606 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.compiler.compiler.PackageBuilder.addProcessFromXml(PackageBuilder.java:693)

13:12:21,617 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.compiler.compiler.CompositeKnowledgeBuilderImpl.buildResources(CompositeKnowledgeBuilderImpl.java:131)

13:12:21,629 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.compiler.compiler.CompositeKnowledgeBuilderImpl.build(CompositeKnowledgeBuilderImpl.java:74)

13:12:21,638 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.compiler.kie.builder.impl.KieBuilderSetImpl.buildChanges(KieBuilderSetImpl.java:117)

13:12:21,648 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.drools.compiler.kie.builder.impl.KieBuilderSetImpl.build(KieBuilderSetImpl.java:71)

13:12:21,659 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.guvnor.common.services.builder.Builder.addResource(Builder.java:180)

13:12:21,667 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.guvnor.common.services.builder.Builder.updateResource(Builder.java:257)

13:12:21,677 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.guvnor.common.services.builder.BuildServiceImpl.updatePackageResource(BuildServiceImpl.java:183)

13:12:21,688 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.guvnor.common.services.builder.BuildServiceImpl$Proxy$_$$_WeldClientProxy.updatePackageResource(BuildServiceImpl$Proxy$_$$_WeldClientProxy.java)

13:12:21,702 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at org.guvnor.common.services.builder.BuildChangeListener$4.run(BuildChangeListener.java:259)

13:12:21,713 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)

13:12:21,722 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)

13:12:21,731 ERROR [stderr] (pool-20-thread-1)  at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)

So, it is complaining about some dataInputAssociation tag in the bpmn2 file, which is missing some sourceRef and/or targetRef (AND, or OR? Does it have to be specifying both of them, or at least one?). I checked the xml, and all the dataInputAssociation tags are showing one of the two attributes, or both. Unfortunately the error log is not telling me the line of the xml code affected, nor the exact ID of the defective tag, so it is quite hard to search for and fix the problem manually. The validation in the process editor is not reporting any issue. How can I fix that?.

Anyway, this is ending up in a NullPointerException: in fact, if I try to Build&Deploy from the Project screen, the build fails, and the Problems screen reports several NullPointerExceptions for several bpmn2 processes. I also wanted to know if it is normal that, in the Problems screen, the error log does not report the correct column and line number indicating where the error was found (it always says Column 0 and Line -1)

[swiderski.maciej]

could you please file a jira issue for the problem with dataInputAssociation and please include a process that is illustrating the issue. THat way we can fix it before 6.0 final.

Cheers

[ocramot]

I must have changed something, and now it's working - yet I am no longer able to reproduce the problem. If the problem will show up again, I will add a Jira issue. Thanks!

[smorriso]

I don't suppose you worked out what you did to fix that?  We are seeing a similar issue with JBPM 6.

[swiderski.maciej]

Stephen, if you have a process definition that reproduces that please file a jira issue for it so we can check and fix or at least give some pointers on what shall be adjusted.

Cheers

[ocramot]

Sorry, I didn't explain well myself.

After I wrote this thread, I looked back again at the process definitions in the editor, and I noticed that a variable assignment was blank for a parameter in a workItem. I don't know why, I am sure I filled the form completely, but I must have mistyped the variable name and the editor did'nt save it correctly. After I filled the table cell with the correct parameter, I was able to build & deploy.

So, I could tell that the bug was that for some reasons, it may happen that after completing a parameter assignment, the designer would not accept some values and leave the field blank. Unfortunately I'm sure I validated and saved the process before trying to build the project, yet both validation and saving didn't notice the fault.

I'm sorry I coulnd't formulate this any way better and open a Jira issue about this. After Maciej's suggestion, I tried leaving blank or mistyping some parameters in the designer, but this time the faults were noticed. Therefore I don't really know how to reproduce the problem, sorry.

Thanks again for the support.

Cheers