null pointer exception during startup

[paolostivanin]

OS: ArchLinux x64
Sleuthkit: 4.0.1 compiled from github
Libewf: 20121209 compile from source
Autopsy: 3.0.1 compiled from github

Autopsy runs quiet well but i got an error during startup that tell me something about a "null pointer exception".
Here you are 2 images about this error!

ps: thanks a lot Brian for your book and your work! :)

[ghost]

Greetings polslinux,

Was this your first time running Autopsy after building both it and TSK?
It looks like you were running it from ant, could you try running "ant clean", "ant build", and then "ant run"? Sometimes with the platform we are using, a clean build is required to start everything properly on the first run. This should only be necessary once if it is the problem.

Could you also send us the log files for this exception? From your screenshot, it looks like they were saved in the /home/pol/autopsy/build/testuserdir/var/log folder. The important logs being "autopsy.log.0" and "message.log". Making a Gist is probably the easiest way to send the information.

Thank you,
Devin

[paolostivanin]

Yes, i run it with ant run and i have built it with ant build.
I had already tried with ant clean but with no luck :(
autopsy.log.0 -> https://gist.github.com/4286764
message.log -> https://gist.github.com/4286769

[ghost]

I took a look at the file in question, AutoupdateSettings.java. It is part of the NetBeans Rich Client Platform rather than Autopsy. You can see it here.

There have been previous null pointer exceptions reported in the same method as your exception, but they all seem to have been fixed. Looking at the line your exception was on, 435, it seems improbably that you have the most recent version of the file, because that line only consists of }.

Going to the second most recent version of AutoupdateSettings.java, viewable here, line 435 contains a .exists() method call. And to top it off, the most recent commit adds a return if the superFile is null.

I'm going to recommend deleting your autopsy/netbeans-plat folder, and then running ant clean ant build and ant run. Whether that will pull the correct version of the NetBeans platform I'm unsure, because it should have done so in the first place.

Let me know if that doesn't work and we'll see if we can find a better way to get you the updated version.

Regards,
Devin

[paolostivanin]

no luck, the same error occur :(

[adam-m]

Cannot reproduce. Recommending retry with latest sources, which will also pull latest netbeans rcp.

[adam-m]

Cannot reproduce, likely old Netbeans RCP version glitch