Troubleshooting "An unexpected exception occurred in the directory layer" error at User Application start-up.

When starting the Jboss Application Server seems to start, but the User Application will not load in a browser, the following error is found in the log.

 

Error:

"[com.sssw.fw.directory.api.EboDirectoryFactory:<clinit>] An unexpected exception occurred in the directory layer.
com.sssw.fw.exception.EboUnrecoverableSystemException: An unexpected exception occurred in the directory layer.
 at com.sssw.fw.directory.realm.impl.jndildap.EboLdapDirectoryConnection.createBaseContext(EboLdapDirectoryConnection.java:305)
 at com.sssw.fw.directory.realm.impl.jndildap.EboLdapDirectoryConnection.authenticate(EboLdapDirectoryConnection.java:163)
 at com.sssw.fw.directory.realm.impl.jndildap.EboLdapDirectoryConnectionManager.createConnectionArray(EboLdapDirectoryConnectionManager.java:327)
 at com.sssw.fw.directory.realm.impl.jndildap.EboLdapDirectoryConnectionManager.<init>(EboLdapDirectoryConnectionManager.java:103)
 at com.sssw.fw.directory.realm.impl.jndildap.EboJndiLdapDirectoryFactory.createConnectionMgrInstance(EboJndiLdapDirectoryFactory.java:111)"

This error can be caused by a few things:

1- You are having a network issue or you have dropped your connection to the eDir server

    -Check to make sure your eDir server is running

    -Check to see if you have 2 way communication to eDir, ping your eDir server from the machine you  have the User Application installed on.

    -Make sure someone has not blocked the port within the firewall that eDir communicates on with the User Application

    -Open Configupdate.sh or .bat depending on the OS you are running on, and see if you can browse the tree by clicking on selector next to the Root Container DN.
     If you cannot browser the tree, make sure you are pointing to the correct eDir server and have the proper admin credentials set in the configupdate.

 

2- It is also advisable to restart the eDir server as well as your UserApplication server

 

3- Another very common cause of this error happens when one of the eDir certificates has expired.

   Please check all the certificates on your eDir server, you must check the root certificates as well as the intermediate certificates.

   The root certificate has a 10 year expiration and the intermediate has a 2 year. Many times due to the short expiration period the intermediate has expired without anyone noticing. 

   If one of the certificates has expired please regenerate it, once this is done you will have to restart your eDir server. Nothing is required on the User Application side other than restarting the Jboss server.