On my cite we had an XML parser created by Oracle (oracle.xml.parser.v2.SAXParser) installed in the system, so FOP was picking it up and using it before it found Xerces. Same for the JXTransformer class in oracle.xml.jaxp.JXTransformer. This created a NullPointerException in JXTransformer.reportXSLException(). My kludge solution was to modify fop.sh and to include both xercesImpl.jar and xalan.jar in -Xbootclasspath/p: (so they are searched before ANY other JARs). This eliminated the NullPointerException and everything worked perfectly. In this bugzilla form I listed this under with OS Linux, but I suspect it would produce the same effects on any other system where Xerces and Xalan aren't found first.
I'm not sure what FOP can do here to fix this problem; we don't code the Oracle parsers, and the choosing of the specific XML libraries is done by the Java classloader, not FOP. There are buggy versions of Xalan and Xerces that will also create NPE's; our solution in these cases are to recommend the user replace those libraries with more recent versions from the Xalan / Xerces web sites. Glen
batch transition to closed remaining pre-FOP1.0 resolved bugs