Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory - nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException

Question

I'm only learning Java and Spring and after several projects/tutorials went well I'm stuck with this error on a new project:

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory' defined in class path resource [org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/orm/jpa/HibernateJpaConfiguration.class]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException

I googled and checked stackoverflow questions, but haven't seen "nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException" in any cases. It's quite a vague error message to me, so I can't understand what's causing the error.

Here's my pom.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.6.7</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>shoptest</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>shoptest</name>
    <description>Shop Test for my project</description>
    <properties>
        <java.version>11</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-hateoas</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
            <version>1.18.22</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Edit : Stack trace:

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'entityManagerFactory' defined in class path resource [org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/orm/jpa/HibernateJpaConfiguration.class]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1804) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:620) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:542) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.lambda$doGetBean$0(AbstractBeanFactory.java:335) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:234) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:333) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:208) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.getBean(AbstractApplicationContext.java:1154) ~[spring-context-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:908) ~[spring-context-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:583) ~[spring-context-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.context.ServletWebServerApplicationContext.refresh(ServletWebServerApplicationContext.java:145) ~[spring-boot-2.6.7.jar:2.6.7]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:740) ~[spring-boot-2.6.7.jar:2.6.7]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refreshContext(SpringApplication.java:415) ~[spring-boot-2.6.7.jar:2.6.7]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:303) ~[spring-boot-2.6.7.jar:2.6.7]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1312) ~[spring-boot-2.6.7.jar:2.6.7]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1301) ~[spring-boot-2.6.7.jar:2.6.7]
    at com.example.shoptest.ShoptestApplication.main(ShoptestApplication.java:10) ~[classes/:na]
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: null
    at org.hibernate.boot.internal.InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.processFkSecondPassesInOrder(InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.java:1672) ~[hibernate-core-5.6.8.Final.jar:5.6.8.Final]
    at org.hibernate.boot.internal.InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.processSecondPasses(InFlightMetadataCollectorImpl.java:1623) ~[hibernate-core-5.6.8.Final.jar:5.6.8.Final]
    at org.hibernate.boot.model.process.spi.MetadataBuildingProcess.complete(MetadataBuildingProcess.java:295) ~[hibernate-core-5.6.8.Final.jar:5.6.8.Final]
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.metadata(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:1460) ~[hibernate-core-5.6.8.Final.jar:5.6.8.Final]
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.build(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:1494) ~[hibernate-core-5.6.8.Final.jar:5.6.8.Final]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.SpringHibernateJpaPersistenceProvider.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(SpringHibernateJpaPersistenceProvider.java:58) ~[spring-orm-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:365) ~[spring-orm-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.buildNativeEntityManagerFactory(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:409) ~[spring-orm-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:396) ~[spring-orm-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:341) ~[spring-orm-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1863) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1800) ~[spring-beans-5.3.19.jar:5.3.19]
    ... 16 common frames omitted

Answer 1

This NPE could be caused by something in your JPA entity model definition that Hibernate is not able to deal with. Probably this could be a misconfiguration in your JPA entities definition (but of course could be other stuff also).

One modification you could do in order to investigate deeper is to enable debug or even trace logging for the hibernate classes. This would probably give some good hint on where to look at.

Additionally, is your JPA entity model very complex? Can you post it here?

Answer 2

The reason turned out to be the wrong type of the field in the Embedded class for a composite key. I thought I had to refer to the Id column of another entity and its type, but I had to refer to the whole object.

So instead this implementation

public class OrderItemPK implements Serializable {

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="ORDER_ID")
    private **Long** orderId;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="PRODUCT_ID")
    private **Long** productId;

should've been this:

public class OrderItemPK implements Serializable {

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="ORDER_ID")
    private **Order** order;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name="PRODUCT_ID")
    private **Product** product;