Project Management Cells can fail to load

We've been looking into a problem with i2b2 version 1.7. The problem
manifested in several different ways. Sometimes the project management
cells would fail to load, sometimes the whole application could hang,
solved only by restarting jboss.

This is one example of the exception we would get.
10:39:49,092 INFO [edu.harvard.i2b2.crc.dao.OracleDAOFactory]
(http--0.0.0.0-9090-9) Using datasource java:/QueryToolRD
10:39:49,098 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10)
java.lang.NullPointerException
10:39:49,099 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase.responseBodyConsumed(HttpMetho
dBase.java:2405)
10:39:49,099 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase$1.responseConsumed(HttpMethodB
ase.java:1892)
10:39:49,099 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.commons.httpclient.AutoCloseInputStream.notifyWatcher(AutoCloseI
nputStream.java:198)
10:39:49,099 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.commons.httpclient.AutoCloseInputStream.close(AutoCloseInputStre
am.java:158)
10:39:49,099 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethodBase.releaseConnection(HttpMethodBa
se.java:1181)
10:39:49,100 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.transport.http.CommonsHTTPTransportSender.cleanup(CommonsH
TTPTransportSender.java:89)
10:39:49,100 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.client.ServiceClient.cleanupTransport(ServiceClient.java:8
62)
10:39:49,100 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
edu.harvard.i2b2.common.util.axis2.ServiceClient.sendREST(Unknown Source)
10:39:49,100 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
edu.harvard.i2b2.crc.delegate.pm.CallPMUtil.callUserProject(CallPMUtil.java
:85)
10:39:49,100 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
edu.harvard.i2b2.crc.delegate.pm.PMServiceDriver.checkValidUser(PMServiceDr
iver.java:68)
10:39:49,101 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
edu.harvard.i2b2.crc.delegate.setfinder.QueryRequestDelegate.handleRequest(
QueryRequestDelegate.java:108)
10:39:49,101 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
edu.harvard.i2b2.crc.axis2.QueryService.handleRequest(QueryService.java:213
)
10:39:49,101 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
edu.harvard.i2b2.crc.axis2.QueryService.request(QueryService.java:75)
10:39:49,101 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor19.invoke(Unknown Source)
10:39:49,101 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImp
l.java:43)
10:39:49,102 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
10:39:49,102 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.receivers.RawXMLINOutMessageReceiver.invokeBusinessLogic(R
awXMLINOutMessageReceiver.java:97)
10:39:49,102 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.receivers.AbstractInOutSyncMessageReceiver.invokeBusinessL
ogic(AbstractInOutSyncMessageReceiver.java:42)
10:39:49,102 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.receivers.AbstractMessageReceiver.receive(AbstractMessageR
eceiver.java:114)
10:39:49,103 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.engine.AxisEngine.receive(AxisEngine.java:181)
10:39:49,103 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.transport.http.HTTPTransportUtils.processHTTPPostRequest(H
TTPTransportUtils.java:172)
10:39:49,103 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServlet.doPost(AxisServlet.java:146)
10:39:49,103 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:754)
10:39:49,103 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:847)
10:39:49,103 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(Applicatio
nFilterChain.java:329)
10:39:49,104 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterC
hain.java:248)
10:39:49,104 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.j
ava:275)
10:39:49,104 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.j
ava:161)
10:39:49,104 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.jboss.as.web.security.SecurityContextAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityCo
ntextAssociationValve.java:153)
10:39:49,105 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:15
5)
10:39:49,105 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:10
2)
10:39:49,105 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.jav
a:109)
10:39:49,105 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:368)
10:39:49,105 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:877)
10:39:49,106 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Htt
p11Protocol.java:671)
10:39:49,106 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:930)
10:39:49,106 ERROR [stderr] (http--0.0.0.0-9090-10) at
java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

It wasnt always this exception, other times it would manifest as
'Attempted read on closed stream.' or various flavors of corrupted XML
processing.