ESB errors not propagating to BPEL process

Question

I am working in SOA Suite 10.1.3.3. I have an asynchronous BPEL process that is orchestrating a number of ESB services, most of which perform database operations. Occasionally an attempt is made to insert a record into a table which results in an error (e.g., null value inserted into a non-null field, record already exists, non-existent record in parent table upon which current table depends, etc.). This correctly results in an error in the ESB service that shows up in the ESB Control console.
The problem is that the error is NOT propagated upward to the invoking BPEL process (which contains all manner of fault catching branches to process the error, log it, send email notifications, and perform other database operations dependent upon the success or failure of the ESB operations). The BPEL process is therefore left "hanging" and never appears in the BPEL Control console as an instance. It shows up in the Manual Recovery queue as an essentially unrecoverable process.
I am assuming that this change in behavior (such errors formerly propagated to the calling BPEL) is a direct result of the new Fault Handling Framework. My question is: what do I have to do in order to restore the original behavior of the system (ESB service encounters an error and propagates the fault to the async BPEL process, which catches it and does whatever it needs to do to fulfill the requirements of the overall system)? Is this something that can be handled by changes to the BPEL/ESB system configuration, the BPEL process definition, the ESB service definitions, or some combination thereof?
Thanks for your time.
Paul Camann

Answer 1

Hello. We applied 10.1.3.3.1 MLR14 in late October 2008.
We are seeing large numbers of errors like this in the ESB log ($ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/oc4j_soa/log/oc4j_soa_default_group_1/oc4j/log.xml):
<MESSAGE>
<HEADER>
<TSTZ_ORIGINATING>2009-01-26T13:11:15.497-05:00</TSTZ_ORIGINATING>
<COMPONENT_ID>tip</COMPONENT_ID>
<MSG_TYPE TYPE="ERROR"></MSG_TYPE>
<MSG_LEVEL>1</MSG_LEVEL>
<HOST_ID>biwsvlbat027.gdbiw.com</HOST_ID>
<HOST_NWADDR>1.2.3.4</HOST_NWADDR>
<MODULE_ID>esb.server.service.impl.soap</MODULE_ID>
<THREAD_ID>98</THREAD_ID>
<USER_ID>oracle</USER_ID>
<SUPPL_ATTRS>
<ATTR NAME="J2EE_MODULE.name">provider-war</ATTR>
<ATTR NAME="J2EE_APP.name">esb-rt</ATTR>
<ATTR
NAME="WEBSERVICE_PORT.name">__soap_Router_ODS_STAGE_Insert_ODS_STAGE_I_PortType</ATTR>
<ATTR NAME="WEBSERVICE.name">ESB_Router_ODS_STAGE_Insert_Service</ATTR>
</SUPPL_ATTRS>
</HEADER>
<CORRELATION_DATA>
<EXEC_CONTEXT_ID><UNIQUE_ID>1232993475:1.2.3.4:7097:0:307</UNIQUE_ID><SEQ>5</SEQ></EXEC_CONT
EXT_ID>
</CORRELATION_DATA>
<PAYLOAD>
<MSG_TEXT>Exception while print response</MSG_TEXT>
<SUPPL_DETAIL><![CDATA[java.lang.NullPointerException
at oracle.tip.esb.server.service.impl.soap.EventOracleSoapProvider.processMessage
(EventOracleSoapProvider.java:215)
at oracle.j2ee.ws.server.provider.ProviderProcessor.doEndpointProcessing
(ProviderProcessor.java:956)
at oracle.j2ee.ws.server.WebServiceProcessor.invokeEndpointImplementation
(WebServiceProcessor.java:349)
at oracle.j2ee.ws.server.provider.ProviderProcessor.doRequestProcessing
(ProviderProcessor.java:466)
at oracle.j2ee.ws.server.WebServiceProcessor.processRequest
(WebServiceProcessor.java:114)
at oracle.j2ee.ws.server.WebServiceProcessor.doService(WebServiceProcessor.java:96)
at oracle.j2ee.ws.server.WebServiceServlet.doPost(WebServiceServlet.java:177)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:763)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856)
at com.evermind.server.http.ServletRequestDispatcher.invoke
(ServletRequestDispatcher.java:713)
at com.evermind.server.http.ServletRequestDispatcher.forwardInternal
(ServletRequestDispatcher.java:370)
at com.evermind.server.http.HttpRequestHandler.doProcessRequest
(HttpRequestHandler.java:871)
at com.evermind.server.http.HttpRequestHandler.processRequest
(HttpRequestHandler.java:453)
at com.evermind.server.http.AJPRequestHandler.run(AJPRequestHandler.java:302)
at com.evermind.server.http.AJPRequestHandler.run(AJPRequestHandler.java:190)
at oracle.oc4j.network.ServerSocketReadHandler$SafeRunnable.run
(ServerSocketReadHandler.java:260)
at com.evermind.util.ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor$MyWorker.run
(ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor.java:303)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
]]></SUPPL_DETAIL>
</PAYLOAD>
</MESSAGE>
which is possibly the message that would come back from ESB to BPEL failing?
Thank you.