Error when creating Oracle12c PDB using DBCA response file in silent mode

Question

I am getting an Oracle dbca NullPointerException when trying to create a PDB (Pluggable Database) usingdbca response file in silent mode.
I have a Oracle 12c CDB up and running, listener is also up, $ORACLE_HOME and $ORACLE_SID are also set correctly.
After database install and creating CDB using response files, I am now trying to create a PDB using dbca response file. Contents of dbca.rsp -
[GENERAL]
RESPONSEFILE_VERSION = "12.1.0"
OPERATION_TYPE = "createPluggableDatabase"
[CREATEPLUGGABLEDATABASE]
SOURCEDB = "orcl"
PDBNAME = "dev"
CREATEPDBFROM = "DEFAULT"
PDBADMINUSERNAME = "oracle"
PDBADMINPASSWORD = "oracle"
CREATEUSERTABLESPACE = "true" 
I tried following commands:
dbca -silent -responseFile /<file path>/dbca.rsp dbca -silent -createPluggableDatabase -responseFile /<file path>/dbca.rsp
Both give same error:
---- Begin output of /u01/app/oracle/product/12c/db_1/bin/dbca -silent -responseFile /<file path>/dbca.rsp
STDOUT:
STDERR: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at oracle.sysman.assistants.dbca.backend.CommandLineArguments.processResponseFile(CommandLineArguments.java:6885)
at oracle.sysman.assistants.dbca.backend.CommandLineArguments.process(CommandLineArguments.java:4544)
at oracle.sysman.assistants.dbca.Dbca.execute(Dbca.java:110) at oracle.sysman.assistants.dbca.Dbca.main(Dbca.java:184)
However when I pass exact same parameters as command line arguments, dbca works absolutely fine and PDB is created: Following command runs succefully.
dbca -silent -createPluggableDatabase -sourceDB orcl -pdbName dev -createPDBFrom default -pdbAdminUserName oracle -pdbAdminPassword oracle -createUserTableSpace true
My environment need installation using response files only. I had used a dbca response file with "createDatabase" option for CDB and it worked fine. Error is observed only when I run it with OPERATION_TYPE as "createPluggableDatabase".
There is an option to create PDBs along with CDB creation when OPERATION_TYPE is "createDatabase". But Oracle does not give flexibility to name PDBs in this option. If I ask Oracle to create 3 PDBs, it will name them itself like PDB01, PDB02, PDB03 and so on. This doesn't work in my deployment because of applications compile time dependencies on specific PDB names.

Answer 1

Yes, I am pointing to correct response file. I have two of these. One for "createDatabase" and another one for "createPluggableDatabase".
While the first one works absolutely fine, the one which creates PDBs always gives error.
I tried renaming the response file like dbca_dev.rsp for PDB install but same error message. I read in another forum that rename dbca.rsp is not a good idea.
So I kept it as dbca.rsp but built it using PDB template.
When I try after removing -silent, it tries to launch a UI installer. Since I am in Amazon AWS platform, my instance is CentOS based which doesn't support Xwindows display.
I am stuck with -silent install only. When I try with -progressOnly, I get exactly same error.
Also tried removing some parameters but still get exact same error message.
Tried same trick with "createDatabase" response file, now I see parameters missing error message.
It seems like Oracle doesn't like response file install for "createPluggableDatabase".