SharedPageFlows / GlobalApp / Portal 9.2 Upgrade

Question

Hello all. I am in need of some assistance regarding the updated GlobalApp. We are working on upgrading an application from WebLogic Server/Portal 8.1 to WebLogic Server/Portal 9.2 In so doing, I've run across some behavior I don't understand and with which I was hoping someone could help me.
In upgrading the project, the option to upgrade to Beehive controls was turned ON.
We have a controller, called ShoppingCartController, which allows users to add/remove/update products in their shopping cart. This controller contains a reference to the global.Global class through Java Annotations. Here is the code:
@Jpf.Controller( ... sharedFlowRefs = { @Jpf.SharedFlowRef(name = "sharedGlobalApp", type = global.Global.class) })
public class ShoppingCartController extends PasswordResetPageFlowController implements LoginControllerClient {
@Jpf.SharedFlowField(name = "sharedGlobalApp")
private global.Global globalApp;
I've defined Global.java as follows:
@Jpf.Controller(catches = { @Jpf.Catch(...) }, messageBundles = { @Jpf.MessageBundle(...) })
public class Global extends SharedFlowController {
/** @common:control */
@Control()
private OrderService orders;
public boolean isStoreOpen() {
return this.orders.isStoreOpen();
We have a class called OrderService and the corresponding OrderServiceImpl / OrderServiceBean classes. Generally this arrangement works very well.
When viewing the shopping cart, however, I've found that the code makes multiple (> 10) requests to retreive an instance of the Global class, typically through the PageFlowUtils.getSharedFlow(String, HttpServletRequest, ServletContext) method. For the sake of completing the upgrade by March 11th, I've used the following to retrieve the instance from within a JSP page:
<%
global.Global global = (global.Global)PageFlowUtils.getSharedFlow(global.Global.class.getName(), request, request.getSession().getServletContext());
pageContext.setAttribute("global", global);
%>
This makes the 'global' variable accessible from JSTL calls (side note: is this really the best way to make this accessible, since netui:getData is deprecated?) and works pretty good.
When a user views the shopping cart, however, this works exactly 50% of the time. The first time through, the page renders correctly and the user experience is fine. The second time through, however, a NullPointerException is thrown. I've found that this happens when the ShoppingCartController, in the beforeAction() method, calls this.global.isStoreOpen() and is because the OrderService control is null.
Further investigation lead me to find that at some point, and for a reason unknown to me, the JavaControlUtils.uninitJavaControls() method is being called. This method destroys all controls contained the current instance of the Global class stored in the session. This instance is the same instance that is inserted into the ShoppingCartController. Note that the instance of the Global class is not destroyed, only the controls contained within the Global class.
So the instance of the global.Global referenced as a field in ShoppingCartController is still a valid instance. All of the control fields within global.Global are being set to null and hence the NPE. Perhaps this will help visualize:
* User clicks 'View Shopping Cart'
* ShoppingCartController.beforeAction is called
* beforeAction calls this.global.isStoreOpen()
* isStoreOpen() calls this.orders.isStoreOpen()
* JSP is processed and rendered correctly
* at some point, before the response is finalized, JavaControlUtils.uninitJavaControls() is called against the instance of global.Global referenced by ShoppingCartController and all controls referenced by global.Global are set to null (in our case there is only one control)
* User clicks 'View Shopping Cart' again (or updates a quantity or their zip code, etc.)
* ShoppingCartController.beforeAction is called
* beforeAction calls this.global.isStoreOpen()
* isStoreOpen() calls this.orders.isStoreOpen()
* A NullPointerException is thrown because this.orders is null.
Has anyone seen this? Are we not properly initializing our controls or referencing the global.Global class?
Any help is greatly appreciated. I've searched Google and dev2dev with no luck. :(

Answer 1

Hi,
I am also having the same issue now. Do you have any solution? How did you get through that problem?
Your help is highly appriciated.
Somesh