RapidAnalytics - CookieHandler.getDefault() returns null

miguelal

We recently upgraded the JRE SE (from version 1.6 to version 1.7.0_45) on our RapidAnalytics servers, and since then we have started having a very odd problem with the Get Page and Get Pages operators. RapidAnalytics version 1.3.013 is running on a Windows Server 2008R2. This time we actually installed the JRE using the "Server JRE" tar file, instead of using the installation program, but I am not sure if this has anything to do with this or not.

On line 89 of the HttpURLConnectionProvider class, the call CookieHandler.getDefault() is returning a null, which then makes the operator fail a couple of lines after this. But interestingly enough, if we restart the service everything works fine for a while (the call returns a cookie manager), but a couple of executions later the problem happens again.

Has anybody experienced a similar problem? Any idea of what else we can look into?

This is an example process with which I am able to reproduce the problem:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<process version="5.3.013">
  <context>
    <input/>
    <output/>
    <macros/>
  </context>
  <operator activated="true" class="process" compatibility="5.3.013" expanded="true" name="Process">
    <process expanded="true">
      <operator activated="true" class="web:get_webpage" compatibility="5.3.001" expanded="true" height="60" name="Get Page" width="90" x="246" y="75">
        <parameter key="url" value="http://elmundo.es"/>
        <list key="query_parameters"/>
        <list key="request_properties"/>
      </operator>
      <connect from_op="Get Page" from_port="output" to_port="result 1"/>
      <portSpacing port="source_input 1" spacing="0"/>
      <portSpacing port="sink_result 1" spacing="0"/>
      <portSpacing port="sink_result 2" spacing="0"/>
    </process>
  </operator>
</process>

These are the top lines of the stack trace:

SEVERE: Process failed: java.lang.NullPointerException
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at com.rapidminer.operator.io.web.HttpURLConnectionProvider.getConnectionInstance(HttpURLConnectionProvider.java:106)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.io.web.GetWebpageOperator.read(GetWebpageOperator.java:136)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.io.web.GetWebpageOperator.read(GetWebpageOperator.java:61)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.io.AbstractReader.doWork(AbstractReader.java:126)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.Operator.execute(Operator.java:867)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.execution.SimpleUnitExecutor.execute(SimpleUnitExecutor.java:51)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.ExecutionUnit.execute(ExecutionUnit.java:711)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.OperatorChain.doWork(OperatorChain.java:375)
	at com.rapidminer.operator.Operator.execute(Operator.java:867)

Thanks!

miguelal

Hi again,

In case it helps anyone, it looks like we may have solved the problem by adding the following lines to the HttpURLConnectionProvider class.

Thanks,
Miguel

...
public static HttpURLConnection getConnectionInstance(ParameterHandler handler, URL url) throws UndefinedParameterError, IOException {
	MultiThreadedCookieManager cookieManager = (MultiThreadedCookieManager) CookieHandler.getDefault();
	if(cookieManager == null) {
		cookieManager = new MultiThreadedCookieManager();
		CookieHandler.setDefault(cookieManager);
	}

	if(handler.getParameterAsInt(PARAMETER_ACCEPT_COOKIES)!=ACCEPT_NO_COOKIES) {
...