Activate No Longer Works (ActivationReferenceSearchServlet)

[Gdubz-57m2mu]

When attempting to activate a page, nothing happens, no error is thrown in the top-right as it usually does. Opening the browser inspector / console, I can see the following error (removed hostname and path to page but they are correct in the console log)

widgets.js:3319 GET http://<hostname>:4502/libs/wcm/core/content/reference.json?path=<path-to-page>&_charset_=UTF-8&_dc=... 500 (Server Error)

When I attempt to visit that URL, here is the output log:

{"assets":[ java.lang.NullPointerException Cannot serve request to /libs/wcm/core/content/reference.json in com.day.cq.wcm.core.impl.reference.ActivationReferenceSearchServlet Exception: java.lang.NullPointerException at com.day.cq.wcm.core.impl.reference.ActivationReferenceSearchServlet.doGet(ActivationReferenceSearchServlet.java:137) at org.apache.sling.api.servlets.SlingSafeMethodsServlet.mayService(SlingSafeMethodsServlet.java:268) at org.apache.sling.api.servlets.SlingSafeMethodsServlet.service(SlingSafeMethodsServlet.java:344) at org.apache.sling.api.servlets.SlingSafeMethodsServlet.service(SlingSafeMethodsServlet.java:375) at org.apache.sling.engine.impl.request.RequestData.service(RequestData.java:533) at org.apache.sling.engine.impl.filter.SlingComponentFilterChain.render(SlingComponentFilterChain.java:45) at org.apache.sling.engine.impl.filter.AbstractSlingFilterChain.doFilter(AbstractSlingFilterChain.java:64) at com.day.cq.personalization.impl.TargetComponentFilter.doFilter(TargetComponentFilter.java:96) at org.apache.sling.engine.impl.filter.AbstractSlingFilterChain.doFilter(AbstractSlingFilterChain.java:60) at com.day.cq.wcm.core.impl.WCMDebugFilter.doFilter(WCMDebugFilter.java:133)

We don't have any campaigns configured and the geometrixx content still exists, so not really sure what could be the issue.

EDIT: Had to snip the log short because of the character limit of this post. I can try to post the rest if you need but most of it is all Filter crap.

[smacdonald2008]

Greg - this looks like some sort of bug - not a 'How To' community resource that i can point you to - like an ask the experts or article.

I would recommend opening a ticket for this so support and Eng teams are aware of this issue. 

[Gdubz-57m2mu]

smacdonald2008 wrote...

Greg - this looks like some sort of bug - not a 'How To' community resource that i can point you to - like an ask the experts or article.

I would recommend opening a ticket for this so support and Eng teams are aware of this issue. 

Roger that, I just opened a daycare ticket, thanks!

If I had to guess, it's some asset that's referenced on the page that the activation servlet can't find (thus the NPE), but I've checked every asset that I know is being referenced and they all exist and are accessible. What's odd is it's just this site area too...

[Gdubz-57m2mu · Accepted solution]

Figured this out -- posting here for anyone else in case they search and land here.

This particular case was due to a tag that was being used in the page properties. It's a tag that was deployed from our SVN via maven build. For some reason the date wasn't formatted correctly so the TypeHint was ignored and thus it ended up with the incorrect property type.

incorrect date format (there's no 16th month):
cq:lastReplicated="{Date}2015-16-08T16:04:04.542-05:00"
(this resulted in the property being stored as a String, not a Date)

vs. correct date:
cq:lastReplicated="{Date}2016-08-29T10:58:25.994-04:00"

After correcting this property type/value, activation worked again for the site area and all of it's child pages tagged with this tag.