[CASSANDRA-13389] Possible NPE on upgrade to 3.0/3.X in case of IO errors

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Normal
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 3.0.13, 3.11.0
• Component/s: Local/Startup and Shutdown
• Severity: Normal
• Assignee: Stefania Alborghetti
• Reporter: Stefania Alborghetti

Authors

Stefania Alborghetti

Reviewers

Alex Petrov

• Created: 29/Mar/17 01:53
• Updated: 16/Apr/19 09:30
• Resolved: 30/Mar/17 01:16

Description

There is a NPE on upgrade to 3.0/3.X if a data directory contains directories that generate IO errors, for example if the cassandra process does not have permission to read them.

Here is the exception:

ERROR [main] 2017-03-06 16:41:30,678  CassandraDaemon.java:710 - Exception encountered during startup
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
	at org.apache.cassandra.io.util.FileUtils.delete(FileUtils.java:372) ~[cassandra-all-3.0.11.1564.jar:3.0.11.1564]
	at org.apache.cassandra.db.SystemKeyspace.migrateDataDirs(SystemKeyspace.java:1359) ~[cassandra-all-3.0.11.1564.jar:3.0.11.1564]
	at org.apache.cassandra.service.CassandraDaemon.setup(CassandraDaemon.java:190) ~[cassandra-all-3.0.11.1564.jar:3.0.11.1564]

This is caused by File.listFiles(), which returns null in case of an IO error.