Symptoms

When accessing the Permission Scheme configuration page for a project, a blank page will be displayed and the following error will be thrown in the logs:

java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.contextproviders.ProjectPermissionContextProvider.getContextMap(ProjectPermissionContextProvider.java:85)
at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.CacheableContextProviderDecorator.initContextMap(CacheableContextProviderDecorator.java:70)
at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.CacheableContextProviderDecorator.getContextMap(CacheableContextProviderDecorator.java:46)
at com.atlassian.plugin.web.descriptors.DefaultWebPanelModuleDescriptor$ContextAwareWebPanel.getHtml(DefaultWebPanelModuleDescriptor.java:141)
at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.tab.WebPanelTab.getTab(WebPanelTab.java:75)
at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.servlet.PanelServlet.outputTab(PanelServlet.java:163)
at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.servlet.PanelServlet.doGet(PanelServlet.java:136)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:617)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.DelegatingPluginServlet.service(DelegatingPluginServlet.java:42)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.ServletModuleContainerServlet.service(ServletModuleContainerServlet.java:52)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)

The following exception can also appear in the atlassian-jira.log:

TP-Processor10 ERROR      [500ErrorPage.jsp] Exception caught in 500 page null
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.contextproviders.ProjectPermissionContextProvider.getContextMap(ProjectPermissionContextProvider.java:85)
	at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.CacheableContextProviderDecorator.initContextMap(CacheableContextProviderDecorator.java:70)
	at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.CacheableContextProviderDecorator.getContextMap(CacheableContextProviderDecorator.java:46)
	at com.atlassian.plugin.web.descriptors.DefaultWebPanelModuleDescriptor$ContextAwareWebPanel.getHtml(DefaultWebPanelModuleDescriptor.java:141)
	at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.tab.WebPanelTab.getTab(WebPanelTab.java:75)
	at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.servlet.PanelServlet.outputTab(PanelServlet.java:163)
	at com.atlassian.jira.projectconfig.servlet.PanelServlet.doGet(PanelServlet.java:136)

Environment

Jira Server / Data Center on any version from 8.0.0.

Root Cause

• The affected project do not have any permission scheme associated to it. 
• Project database information is corrupt. See Jira displays a blank page when viewing the Notifications page in Project Administration, or throws a NullPointerException when adding a new SMTP mail server for a different Resolution

Resolution 1 - preferred

1) Identify the affected project ID

• Go to ⚙ > Projects
• Search for the Key or Name of the affected project
• In the Actions Column Icon, click triple dots menu and hover the mouse cursor over the "Edit Menu"
• In the status bar of the browser in the URL string you will see the actual PROJECT ID (highlighted in red rectangle - project ID 10202 in the example below):

2) Use another, working project to navigate to Project Permissions, i.e. Jira -> Another Project -> Project Settings -> Permissions -> Use a different scheme. This will take you to the "Associate Permission Scheme to Project" of the working project. For example:

Here the project ID is 10100 – this is for the working project

3) Now the trick is to change that project ID in the URL string of the working project, from the good project ID to the one of non working one. In this example change 10100 to 10202 and hit Enter. This will take you to the "Associate Permission Scheme to Project" screen of the non working project.

4) Set the default permission scheme and click associate -- this should fix the issue.

Resolution 2 – if Resolution 1 doesn't work for some reason, then the same can be done via a direct database update

1. Identify which projects do not have a Permission Scheme associated with them: 

   SELECT * FROM project WHERE ID NOT IN (SELECT source_node_id FROM nodeassociation WHERE sink_node_entity='PermissionScheme');

2. Get the ID of the project(s) returned; (if the result is null, try Jira displays a blank page when viewing the Notifications page in Project Administration, or throws a NullPointerException when adding a new SMTP mail server )

3. Stop Jira

4. Insert the project permission scheme association data into nodeassociation table:

   INSERT INTO nodeassociation VALUES (<project_id>, 'Project', 0, 'PermissionScheme', 'ProjectScheme', NULL);

    Replace <project_id> with the id from query in step 1.

   This will map the Default Permission Scheme to the project

5. Start Jira