Saving Visualforce Component (ApexComponent) via Tooling API results in "Deployment Failed null deploying ApexComponent"

[David Esposito]

I have a new VF Component and I was saving it fine as I was adding new apex:attributes

But the moment I put a body into the component, I received

2:26:37 PM Deployment Complete: Deployed 0/1 components to sfppdev@XYZ_28.0.patch in 1s 572ms with status FAILED.
3:40:16 PM Deployment Failed
           null deploying ApexComponent components/PublicPaymentInputJS.component: null

If I clip out the body of the component and save it, it deploys successfully

Attached is the log file from when I enabled the following debug channels:

#com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.builder.ForceComBuilder #com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.builder.ForceComMetadataApiDeployer #com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.builder.ForceComToolingApiDeployer #com.illuminatedcloud.intellij.builder.ForceComBuildFailureAnnotator

I saw someone else mention this here: https://groups.google.com/a/illuminatedcloud.com/forum/#!msg/discussion/FOOhZhSaLVM/dAjhKpioBQAJ

And the same thing is true for me: Deploying using the Metadata API is an adequate workaround ... it's just slower

[Scott Wells]

David, a few others have run into this since Winter '17 shipped. It appears to be a regression that also shows up in the Developer Console saving the same file via the Tooling API. The issue manifests as a reported error from the deployment with no problem type or message. See the null values in the following log entries:

2016-10-25 15:45:22,677 [442453047]  DEBUG - der.ForceComToolingApiDeployer - Processing 1 component failures. 
2016-10-25 15:45:22,677 [442453047]   WARN - der.ForceComToolingApiDeployer -   Found null for ApexComponent components/PublicPaymentInputJS.component: null 
2016-10-25 15:45:22,678 [442453048]   INFO - der.ForceComToolingApiDeployer -   Reporting error for C:/Users/ABC/Documents/HIJK/XYZ/src/components/PublicPaymentInputJS.component 
2016-10-25 15:45:22,987 [442453357]  DEBUG - .ForceComBuildFailureAnnotator - Found compile failures for PublicPaymentInputJS.component 
2016-10-25 15:45:22,987 [442453357]   WARN - .ForceComBuildFailureAnnotator - Found a deploy message with a null problem type. 

I've been trying to help Salesforce get a reproducible case of this as it doesn't happen everywhere (one user took the same code that failed in one org to another org and it worked properly). Would you mind if I connected you with someone from Salesforce since you have such an example?

[David Esposito]

Sure .. me and Premiere Support are old pals :-)

[Scott Wells]

Okay. It'll actually be a Product Manager as the initial touchpoint. Do you mind emailing me directly and then I'll connect the two of you via email?

[Scott Wells]

Also, do you mind verifying that you see the same basic behavior in the Developer Console when you try to save that same component? What you'd see is a single problem listed in the bottom Problems dock with no details. That will confirm the exact same behavior that the other user was seeing independent of the tooling API client.

[David Esposito]

Yes indeed .. busted in Dev Console too: http://screencast.com/t/gYPtoxMFplg

Also, I upgraded to IC 1.7.5.0 and the result is the same .. the error message is just a tad different .. I assume a change in formatting on your end:

http://screencast.com/t/t2VwtsfRnqxv

[Scott Wells]

Yep, I made it more accepting of the null values, but the end result is a false negative. Hopefully with your help, Salesforce can isolate and fix the issue. Thanks for the help!

[Scott Wells]

This appears to be a Salesforce issue since the same problem occurs in Developer Console. Salesforce is now working with a user who has encountered the issue to diagnose and resolve it. Resolving the IC-specific issue.

[David Esposito]

Someone's ears must've been burning when you wrote up the last comment because Support just replied saying this is a Known Issue:

https://success.salesforce.com/issues_view?id=a1p3A000000eiXNQAY

I pushed for a better writeup since it appears that the root cause is the custom Apex class as the attribute to the VF Component ... but it doesn't say so explicitly.

[Scott Wells]

Thanks for linking the known issue. Definitely a strange bug, and the workaround (use the metadata API) stinks since that API is so much slower. Hopefully they'll get this resolved soon.

[Scott Wells]

Issue #422 was marked as a duplicate of this issue.