Description:
SOA composite gets validated and deployed successfully but then one of the binding fails to start due to NPE (NullPointer Exception) as described in Symptoms section of this article.

Symptoms:
The following exception is seen in the runtime node logs.

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Error executing START_CONFIGURED_COMPONENT on Promoted Reference Binding. ApplicationName=<application-name>BindingName=<binding-name> ComponentURI=<component-URI> caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException" ....
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.tibco.amf.binding.soap.runtime.SoapOutboundBindingEngine.prepareEndpoint(SoapOutboundBindingEngine.java:159)
....Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.tibco.amf.spin.configInstances.DocumentLiteralBodyAttributes.setNamespace(DocumentLiteralBodyAttributes.java:96)
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Cause:
This can be caused when the SOAP Operation parameters under the respective binding is missing values or is populated incorrectly. Check if the Operation name,Soap action and Style elements under the respective binding has expected values. The problem may also be caused by missing or unexpected values of these fields.

Open the SOA project in the Business Studio > Select respective binding from the Service/Reference Bindings tab and check if all fields given for each operation are populated with correct values.

Delete the problematic binding and create it again. Confirm all soap operation fields lists have expected values. Clean and Build the project. Create a new DAA and deploy. 

In case the above steps do not resolve the error, collect the following materials and forward to TIBCO Support for further troubleshooting.

Complete SystemNode log.
Complete Runtime node log.
DAA of the problematic application.
Complete SOA project including all its dependencies. 

During SOA application deployment, a few of the bindings failed to startdue toNullPointer Exceptions.