Synchronous BPEL process calling apache soap 2.3.1 service(s) on jboss

Question

I have a problem that is quite frustratiing. I have a very simple synchronous BPEL process and I am trying to invoke some legacy services we have deployed using Apache soap 2.3.1 running on jboss. The process executes, the service executes, but the return value is not received by the BPEL process.
I used obtunnel to capture the data flow and everything seems fine from that perspective. The problem is, if you watch the monitor, the status says active, but the BPEL process returns immediately. It does not wait for the response, so the return value winds up being null. I have tried this numerous times with several services and the result is always the same. This is a serious problem for us. Any suggestions/insight would be very much appreciated.
Ina case there are any doubts as to whether or not it is actually a synchronous process, from the BPEL code:
<!--
Oracle JDeveloper BPEL Designer
Created: Wed Apr 18 13:19:50 EDT 2007
Author: bmurray
Purpose: Synchronous BPEL Process
-->
Below is an example from obtunnel:
==============
Listen Port: 5678
Target Host: pian.wlgore.com
Target Port: 8080
==== Request ====
POST /soap/servlet/rpcrouter HTTP/1.1
Host: pian.wlgore.com:5678
Connection: TE
TE: trailers, deflate, gzip, compress
User-Agent: Oracle HTTPClient Version 10h
SOAPAction: "http://vitalstream.com/webservices/Authenticate"
Accept-Encoding: gzip, x-gzip, compress, x-compress
Content-type: text/xml; charset=UTF-8
Content-length: 829
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<env:Body>
<ns0:Authenticate xmlns:ns0="http://vitalstream.com/webservices">
<strAccount xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string">testvar3</strAccount>
<strToken xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string">testvar1</strToken>
<strReferrer xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string">testvar4</strReferrer>
<strSourceURL xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string">testvar</strSourceURL>
<strClientIP xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string">testvar2</strClientIP>
</ns0:Authenticate>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>==== Response ====
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Powered-By: Servlet 2.4; Tomcat-5.0.28/JBoss-4.0.1sp1 (build: CVSTag=JBoss_4_0_1_SP1 date=200502160314)
Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=C656EEE6B641F23F02D6E5BE79CD2A4D.ajp13w; Path=/soap
Content-Type: text/xml;charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 480
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:34:19 GMT
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
<ns1:AuthenticateResponse xmlns:ns1="http://vitalstream.com/webservices" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<return xsi:type="xsd:int">1</return>
</ns1:AuthenticateResponse>
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
==============
As you can see, the value is indeed returned from the service, but BPEL indicates a null value for the return:
<messages><Invoke_1_Authenticate_InputVariable><part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="strSourceURL"><strSourceURL xmlns="" xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">testvar</strSourceURL>
</part><part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="strToken"><strToken xmlns="" xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">testvar1</strToken>
</part><part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="strAccount"><strAccount xmlns="" xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">testvar3</strAccount>
</part><part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="strClientIP"><strClientIP xmlns="" xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">testvar2</strClientIP>
</part><part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="strReferrer"><strReferrer xmlns="" xmlns:def="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="def:string" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">testvar4</strReferrer>
</part></Invoke_1_Authenticate_InputVariable><Invoke_1_Authenticate_OutputVariable><part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="Result">null</part></Invoke_1_Authenticate_OutputVariable></messages>

Answer 1

Did you specify the correct message type for your return variable?
<Invoke_1_Authenticate_OutputVariable>
<part xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" name="Result">
null
</part>
</Invoke_1_Authenticate_OutputVariable>
As is returns:
<ns1:AuthenticateResponse
xmlns:ns1="http://vitalstream.com/webservices" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
<return xsi:type="xsd:int">1</return>
</ns1:AuthenticateResponse>
Regards,
Marc