Rebuild of Indexes in Sitecore Commerce 9.0.2 fails with null reference error

Question

I am trying to rebuild all my Indexes after the Sitecore commerce 9.0.2 setup but the rebuild failed with error as below

The logs I found from the CommerceAuthoring_sc9 says

4 00:44:26 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FBusinessTools%2FViewNames&database=master&language=en
13 00:44:27 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FBusinessTools%2FViewNames&database=master&language=en
40 00:44:27 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FBusinessTools%2FViewPropertyNames&database=master&language=en
40 00:44:27 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/38f71d79-c476-4a2d-8361-6920615164c6/children?database=master&language=en
40 00:44:27 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 2 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FBusinessTools%2FViewPropertyNames&database=master&language=en
13 00:44:28 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/7d2ff1d9-4997-4356-9b42-7900840bdba3/children?database=master&language=en
13 00:44:30 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FBusinessTools%2FViewPropertyNames&database=master&language=en
13 00:44:30 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 2 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FBusinessTools%2FViewPropertyNames&database=master&language=en
13 00:44:30 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/7d2ff1d9-4997-4356-9b42-7900840bdba3/children?database=master&language=en
4 01:24:08 ERROR SitecoreConnectionManager: RETRY 1 out of 3 with
ERROR Forbidden from GET
/sitecore/api/ssc/item/?path=%2Fsitecore%2FCommerce%2FCommerce%20Control%20Panel%2FCommerce%20Engine%20Settings%2FCommerce%20Terms%2FSystem%20Messages&database=master&language=en
3 01:54:11 ERROR Connection id ""0HLG41VNKRDHC"", Request id
""0HLG41VNKRDHC:00000002"": An unhandled exception was thrown by the
application. System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set
to an instance of an object.    at
Sitecore.Commerce.Plugin.Views.ApiController.d__1.MoveNext()

I have also tried to fix this with the help of Ryanblog https://blog.ryanbailey.co.nz/2018/08/sitecore-experience-commerce-index.html but this also did not helped.

Answer 1

The below steps helped me fix the issue.

1. In the Sitecore go to: Content editor > Commerce (Menu)> Update Data Templates, the index would then rebuild to completion.

2. PlugIn.Content.PolicySet-1.0.0.json configuration file should be correctly configured to the username and password for the Sitecore index, most importantly the Host setting which was set to the default like sxa.storefront.com needs to be modified to habitathome.dev.local, and also configured with a valid SSL certificate. By changing this host to the correct one (with a valid certificate) the errors logged in CommerceAuthoring_sc9 no longer occurred.

3. If after all this changes also the rebuild fails then you need check for the broken links for Core,System and master, If you see broken links for items other than habitat then you need to re-install that particular package using the Installation wizard.

Note: Strictly follow the order for which the packages that we need to install.

Sitecore Experience Platform 9.0 Update 2

Sitecore Experience Accelerator 1.7.1

Data Exchange Framework 2.0.1

Sitecore Provider for Data Exchange Framework 2.0.1

SQL Provider for Data Exchange Framework 2.0.1

xConnect Provider for Data Exchange Framework 2.0.1

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales Provider for Data Exchange Framework 2.0.1

Sitecore Connect for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales 2.0.1