Only whitespace content allowed before start tag when trying to view project within JIRA Software

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Symptoms

Trying to while a particular project within JIRA Software results in a  huge stack trace dump in the browser.

The following appears in the atlassian-jira.log:

2012-06-21 15:30:59,960 http-443-24 ERROR jira 930x1724x1 1g1zmie xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx /secure/VersionBoard.jspa [com.atlassian.velocity.DefaultVelocityManager] MethodInvocationException occurred getting message body from Velocity: com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.StreamException:  : only whitespace content allowed before start tag and not ! (position: START_DOCUMENT seen !... @1:1) 
	com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.StreamException:  : only whitespace content allowed before start tag and not ! (position: START_DOCUMENT seen !... @1:1) 
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.XppReader.next(XppReader.java:83)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.XppReader.read(XppReader.java:135)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.XppReader.moveDown(XppReader.java:94)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.XppReader.<init>(XppReader.java:31)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.XppDriver.createReader(XppDriver.java:22)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.fromXML(XStream.java:505)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream.fromXML(XStream.java:496)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.UserBoardsPreferences.loadFromDatabase(UserBoardsPreferences.java:347)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.UserBoardsPreferences.<init>(UserBoardsPreferences.java:65)
		at com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.configuration.UserBoardsPreferencesServiceImpl.getUserPreferences(UserBoardsPreferencesServiceImpl.java:52)
		at com.atlassian.greenhopper.service.configuration.UserBoardsPreferencesServiceImpl.getPreferences(UserBoardsPreferencesServiceImpl.java:39)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.boards.context.DefaultBoardContext.getPreferences(DefaultBoardContext.java:204)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.context.ContextImpl.<init>(ContextImpl.java:55)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.context.DefaultContext.<init>(DefaultContext.java:14)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.context.Contexts.getDefaultContext(Contexts.java:136)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.context.Contexts.get(Contexts.java:28)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.configurations.UserBoardSettings.getSelectedContext(UserBoardSettings.java:112)
		at com.pyxis.greenhopper.jira.boards.context.DefaultBoardContext.getSelectedContext(DefaultBoardContext.java:319)
...
	Caused by: org.xmlpull.v1.XmlPullParserException: only whitespace content allowed before start tag and not ! (position: START_DOCUMENT seen !... @1:1) 
		at org.xmlpull.mxp1.MXParser.parseProlog(MXParser.java:1487)
		at org.xmlpull.mxp1.MXParser.nextImpl(MXParser.java:1363)
		at org.xmlpull.mxp1.MXParser.next(MXParser.java:1061)
		at com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.xml.XppReader.next(XppReader.java:81)
		... 194 more

Cause

JIRA Software's configurations are stored as XML within the database.  With that, if the XML is invalid, it can result in the above.

For example, a normal entry may look like this:

  id   |  propertyvalue
------------------------
 10399 | <map>
       :   <entry>
       :     <string>GH_gh.issue.releasedVersionHistoryField</string>
       :     <string>customfield_10006</string>
       :   </entry>
       :   <entry>
       :     <string>FIX_VERSION_SYNCHER</string>
       :     <boolean>false</boolean>
       :   </entry>
       :   <entry>
       :     <string>gh.configuration.rapidboard.scrum</string>
       :     <boolean>true</boolean>
       :   </entry>
       : </map>

Problematic entry:

  id   |  propertyvalue
------------------------
 10399 | ![CDATA[<map>
       :   <entry>
       :     <string>GH_gh.issue.releasedVersionHistoryField</string>
       :     <string>customfield_10006</string>
       :   </entry>
       :   <entry>
       :     <string>FIX_VERSION_SYNCHER</string>
       :     <boolean>false</boolean>
       :   </entry>
       :   <entry>
       :     <string>gh.configuration.rapidboard.scrum</string>
       :     <boolean>true</boolean>
       :   </entry>
       : </map>]]

Workaround

Remove the problematic entry from both the propertyentry and propertytext tables.

tip/resting Created with Sketch.

Back up your data first.

Resolution

tip/resting Created with Sketch.

Back up your data first.

Only attempt this if you are comfortable with database administration.

  1. Identify the problematic XML:

    1. Identify the Project's ID:

      select * from project;

    2. Identify the Project's configurations (this may return quite a few results):

      select * from propertytext where ID in (select ID from propertyentry where property_key = 'GREENHOPPER%XXXXX');
    3. With the list of results, check the XML data. Note that this may return a large list of results
  2. Once the problematic XML is found, update the entry with the proper format



Last modified on Nov 12, 2018

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