Deployment Assembly: The currently displayed page contains invalid values

Question

I imported a Java Web application from Sourceforge, and I did three working weeks efforts to get rid off all red crosses attached to the project name and packages, but now I couldn't make the application run on my Eclipse & tomcat6 developing environment. In project properties when I tried to set the Deployment Assembly, the dialog box showed: the currently displayed page contains invalid values. And in the error log, I found when I click the Deployment Assembly, The following error message was showed:

Error

Wed Jan 09 10:25:16 CST 2013
Problems occurred when invoking code from plug-in: "org.eclipse.jface".

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.resources.VirtualFolder.getFirstTaggedResource(VirtualFolder.java:185)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.componentcore.J2EEModuleVirtualComponent.getDefaultDeploymentDescriptorFolder(J2EEModuleVirtualComponent.java:542)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.ui.JavaEEDeploymentAssemblyAdvancedSectionBuilder.(JavaEEDeploymentAssemblyAdvancedSectionBuilder.java:86)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.ui.J2EEModuleDependenciesPropertyPage.getAdvancedSectionBuilder(J2EEModuleDependenciesPropertyPage.java:381)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.ui.J2EEModuleDependenciesPropertyPage.(J2EEModuleDependenciesPropertyPage.java:65)
    at org.eclipse.jst.servlet.ui.internal.WebDependencyPropertyPage.(WebDependencyPropertyPage.java:34)
    at org.eclipse.jst.servlet.ui.internal.WebModuleDependencyPageProvider.createPages(WebModuleDependencyPageProvider.java:54)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.ui.propertypage.ModuleAssemblyRootPage.createContents(ModuleAssemblyRootPage.java:195)
    at org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferencePage.createControl(PreferencePage.java:232)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.ui.propertypage.ModuleAssemblyRootPage.createControl(ModuleAssemblyRootPage.java:346)
    at org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferenceDialog.createPageControl(PreferenceDialog.java:1502)
    at org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferenceDialog$14.run(PreferenceDialog.java:1259)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.SafeRunner.run(SafeRunner.java:42)
    at org.eclipse.ui.internal.JFaceUtil$1.run(JFaceUtil.java:49)
    at org.eclipse.jface.util.SafeRunnable.run(SafeRunnable.java:175)
    at org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferenceDialog.showPage(PreferenceDialog.java:1253)
    at org.eclipse.ui.internal.dialogs.FilteredPreferenceDialog.showPage(FilteredPreferenceDialog.java:675)
    at org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferenceDialog$10.run(PreferenceDialog.java:709)
    at org.eclipse.swt.custom.BusyIndicator.showWhile(BusyIndicator.java:70)
    at org.eclipse.jface.preference.PreferenceDialog$9.selectionChanged(PreferenceDialog.java:705)
    at org.eclipse.jface.viewers.StructuredViewer$3.run(StructuredViewer.java:888)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.SafeRunner.run(SafeRunner.java:42)
    at org.eclipse.ui.internal.JFaceUtil$1.run(JFaceUtil.java:49)
    at org.eclipse.jface.util.SafeRunnable.run(SafeRunnable.java:175)
    at org.eclipse.jface.viewers.StructuredViewer.firePostSelectionChanged(StructuredViewer.java:886)
    at org.eclipse.jface.viewers.StructuredViewer.handlePostSelect(StructuredViewer.java:1226)
    at org.eclipse.jface.viewers.StructuredViewer$5.widgetSelected(StructuredViewer.java:1251)
    at org.eclipse.jface.util.OpenStrategy.firePostSelectionEvent(OpenStrategy.java:262)
    at org.eclipse.jface.util.OpenStrategy.access$5(OpenStrategy.java:256)
    at org.eclipse.jface.util.OpenStrategy$3.run(OpenStrategy.java:433)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.RunnableLock.run(RunnableLock.java:35)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Synchronizer.runAsyncMessages(Synchronizer.java:135)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runAsyncMessages(Display.java:4144)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:3761)
    at org.eclipse.jface.window.Window.runEventLoop(Window.java:825)
    at org.eclipse.jface.window.Window.open(Window.java:801)
    at org.eclipse.ui.dialogs.PropertyDialogAction.run(PropertyDialogAction.java:158)
    at org.eclipse.jface.action.Action.runWithEvent(Action.java:498)
    at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.handleWidgetSelection(ActionContributionItem.java:584)
    at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.access$2(ActionContributionItem.java:501)
    at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem$5.handleEvent(ActionContributionItem.java:411)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:84)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:1053)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runDeferredEvents(Display.java:4169)
    at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:3758)
    at org.eclipse.e4.ui.internal.workbench.swt.PartRenderingEngine$9.run(PartRenderingEngine.java:1022)
    at org.eclipse.core.databinding.observable.Realm.runWithDefault(Realm.java:332)
    at org.eclipse.e4.ui.internal.workbench.swt.PartRenderingEngine.run(PartRenderingEngine.java:916)
    at org.eclipse.e4.ui.internal.workbench.E4Workbench.createAndRunUI(E4Workbench.java:86)
    at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench$5.run(Workbench.java:585)
    at org.eclipse.core.databinding.observable.Realm.runWithDefault(Realm.java:332)
    at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Workbench.java:540)
    at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(PlatformUI.java:149)
    at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.application.IDEApplication.start(IDEApplication.java:124)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.internal.app.EclipseAppHandle.run(EclipseAppHandle.java:196)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(EclipseAppLauncher.java:110)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.start(EclipseAppLauncher.java:79)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:353)
    at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:180)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:629)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:584)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1438)
    at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:1414)

I googled many times , but I cannot find the solutions. Can anyone give a favor to let the Deployment Assembly work? I think this is the key why my app cannot run. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

eclipse -clean didn't fix it for me. My workaround: In eclipse delete the project (don't delete on disk). Then in the filesystem delete .project .classpath and .settings/* Then in eclipse, same workspace, create new webproject with same name as the old one. It created the project and found all my source. Now Deployment Assembly works again! After that, I updated build path to have the proper project and lib dependencies.

Answer 2

Please look at this answer. If clean won't help, then probably something is wrong with your project's specific settings. I would suggest you to examine every file inside .settings/ directory.

I know this is not a ready-to-go solution, but may be at least a starting point.

Answer 3

I experienced this issue as well. It was caused by me deleting another project on which my current project was dependent. I fixed the issue by opening the file org.eclipse.wst.common.component in the .settings folder and deleting the dependency. This fixed the issues and I was able to edit the deployment assembly.

Section I removed: (utility.jar is the name of my offending jar)

   <dependent-module archiveName="utility.jar" deploy-path="/WEB-INF/lib" handle="module:/resource/utility/utility">
        <dependency-type>uses</dependency-type>
    </dependent-module>

Someone else I work with was able to fix it by deleting the jar from their build path.

Hope this helps anyone that hits this issue.