Accessing the Administration page throws the error "Invocation of method 'getNotEmptySectionsForLocation'"

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Symptoms

Upon accessing the Administration page of JIRA, the following error appears on the top of the page:

An error occurred whilst rendering this message. Please contact the administrators, and inform them of this bug. Details: -------  org.apache.velocity.exception.MethodInvocationException: Invocation of method 'getNotEmptySectionsForLocation' in class  com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.DefaultSimpleLinkManager threw exception class java.lang.NullPointerException : null at  org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTMethod.execute(ASTMethod.java:251) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTReference.execute(ASTReference.java:175) at ...

Users may also see a NullPointerException in the logs when selecting the Projects menu pulldown.

The following appears in the atlassian-jira.log:

012-03-05 14:44:11,255 http-80-23 ERROR admin 884x83424x1 1ftk60y 192.168.240.198 /plugins/servlet/project-config/TST/summary [velocity] Method getNotEmptySectionsForLocation threw exception for reference $linkManager in template templates/plugins/webfragments/system-admin-navigation-bar.vm at [2,29] 2012-03-05 14:44:11,255 http-80-23 ERROR admin 884x83424x1 1ftk60y 192.168.240.198 /plugins/servlet/project-config/TST/summary [com.atlassian.velocity.DefaultVelocityManager] MethodInvocationException occurred getting message body from Velocity: java.lang.NullPointerException java.lang.NullPointerException at com.atlassian.jira.project.ProjectHistoryLinkFactory.getLinks(ProjectHistoryLinkFactory.java:103) at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.DefaultSimpleLinkManager.getLinks(DefaultSimpleLinkManager.java:207) at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.DefaultSimpleLinkManager.getLinksForSection(DefaultSimpleLinkManager.java:130) at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.DefaultSimpleLinkManager.getNotEmptySectionsForLocation(DefaultSimpleLinkManager.java:335) at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.DefaultSimpleLinkManager.getNotEmptySectionsForLocation(DefaultSimpleLinkManager.java:343) at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webfragment.DefaultSimpleLinkManager.getNotEmptySectionsForLocation(DefaultSimpleLinkManager.java:355)

Cause

There is a project(s) that have a miss-configured project avatar. These project points to an avatar that does not exist on the database.

Workaround

  1. Access the Administration's project list by using the following URL:

    1. http://<BASE-URL>/secure/project/ViewProjects.jspa

  2. Update all the projects where the avatar is missing via:

    1. Edit >> Edit Avatar >> Select a Project Avatar >> Update

Updated on April 21, 2026

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