WARNING: Unexpected error forwarding to login page

I am trying to use FORM based authentication but I am getting this error in the tomcat console...

Jun 25, 2004 2:51:46 PM org.apache.catalina.authenticator.FormAuthenticator authenticate
WARNING: Unexpected error forwarding to login page
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.FormAuthenticator.authenticate(FormAuthenticator.java:214)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:504)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:102)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:137)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:117)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:102)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardValveContext.invokeNext(StandardValveContext.java:104)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:520)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:929)
at org.apache.coyote.tomcat5.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:160)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:793)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11Protocol.java:702)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.TcpWorkerThread.runIt(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:571)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:644)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)

When I try to goto my web page (http://localhost:8080/E3/common/CustomerInq/index.faces) I get a blank screen.
However, if after getting the blank screen I goto the login page (http://localhost:8080/E3/login2.jsp) and type in a correct login page then I will get redirected to the CustomerInq/index.faces page correctly.
[ June 25, 2004: Message edited by: David Wilson ]

This is a snippit of my web.xml...

and here is the login from the Orielly JSF book that I am trying to use as a starting point...

Any ideas are will be greatly appreciated.

-David

Hi David ,

i just bumped into this problem. well in my case it was easy to fix
i was using <login-page>/login.html</login-page>(wrong) instead of <form-login-page>/login.html</form-login-page> form some reason the parser didnt threw me an error
This error occurs when the container is unbale to pick up the login page at runtime. I would check that i have the right mapping in web.xml and the page is there in the right directory ect.