Service Desk Upgrade fails with NullPointerException

• Upgrading Service Desk from version 7.1 to 7.3
• Upgrade fails with NullPointerException
• Some rows in the category table in the database have icon_id value of null

The following errors could be seen in the LiveTime.log:

ERROR:
DEBUG202872[Thread-12] null(UpgradeController.java:200) - Current Upgrade:: Upgrade task failed: org.hibernate.HibernateException: java.lang.NullPointerException
...
ERROR202872[Thread-12] null(UpgradeTask.java:101) - An error occurred during upgrade
java.lang.Exception: org.hibernate.HibernateException: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at com.livetime.core.init.UpgradeController.upgrade(UpgradeController.java:131)
    at com.livetime.core.init.UpgradeTask.upgradeDB(UpgradeTask.java:164)
    at com.livetime.core.init.UpgradeTask.run(UpgradeTask.java:79)
Caused by: org.hibernate.HibernateException: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at com.livetime.core.init.Defaults.setup(Defaults.java:339)
    at com.livetime.core.init.Defaults.setup(Defaults.java:142)
    at com.livetime.core.init.UpgradeController.upgrade(UpgradeController.java:95)
    ... 2 more
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at com.livetime.core.init.CmdbIcons.setDefault(CmdbIcons.java:33)
    at com.livetime.core.init.Defaults.setup(Defaults.java:270)
    ... 4 more

The following error could be seen in the Application Setup page:

ERROR:
Status:Upgrade task failed: org.hibernate.hiberanateException: java.lang.NullPointerException.

Upgrade task failed. Please use 'Go Back' button to go back and try the upgrade again...

Please contact Micro Focus Customer Care for a workaround to this issue.