NPE thrown on every controller method in a bare-bones Grails App - grails

Question

I'm using IntelliJ Ultimate 2016.2. I made a simple bare-bones app with a controller. App compiles and runs fine but when I go to the controller's index page or any other page it throws an NPE. The controller:
package etradescripter
class SimpleController {
def index() {
render "Hello World"
}
def hi() {
render "How are you?"
}
}
Accessing app-url/simple/index throws an NPE like this:
ERROR StackTrace - Full Stack Trace:
java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAttribute() on null object
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.NullObject.invokeMethod(NullObject.java:91)
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.PogoMetaClassSite.call(PogoMetaClassSite.java:48)
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteArray.defaultCall(CallSiteArray.java:48)
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.NullCallSite.call(NullCallSite.java:35)
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteArray.defaultCall(CallSiteArray.java:48)
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.PogoMetaClassSite.call(PogoMetaClassSite.java:57)
at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.AbstractCallSite.call(AbstractCallSite.java:125)
at etradescripter.SimpleController.index(SimpleController.groovy)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
at org.springsource.loaded.ri.ReflectiveInterceptor.jlrMethodInvoke(ReflectiveInterceptor.java:1426)
at org.grails.core.DefaultGrailsControllerClass$ReflectionInvoker.invoke(DefaultGrailsControllerClass.java:210)
at org.grails.core.DefaultGrailsControllerClass.invoke(DefaultGrailsControllerClass.java:187)
at org.grails.web.mapping.mvc.UrlMappingsInfoHandlerAdapter.handle(UrlMappingsInfoHandlerAdapter.groovy:89)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:961)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:895)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:967)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:858)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:622)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:843)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:729)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:292)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.springframework.boot.actuate.autoconfigure.EndpointWebMvcAutoConfiguration$ApplicationContextHeaderFilter.doFilterInternal(EndpointWebMvcAutoConfiguration.java:261)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.springframework.boot.actuate.trace.WebRequestTraceFilter.doFilterInternal(WebRequestTraceFilter.java:115)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.grails.web.servlet.mvc.GrailsWebRequestFilter.doFilterInternal(GrailsWebRequestFilter.java:75)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.grails.web.filters.HiddenHttpMethodFilter.doFilterInternal(HiddenHttpMethodFilter.java:67)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:121)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.springframework.boot.actuate.autoconfigure.MetricsFilter.doFilterInternal(MetricsFilter.java:103)
at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:240)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:207)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:212)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:106)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:141)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:88)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:522)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1095)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:672)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1502)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1458)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
ERROR StackTrace - Full Stack Trace:
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: null
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAttribute() on null object
... 3 common frames omitted

Answer 1

Turns out, this issue was due to hot-code swapping not working in grails. clean -> recompile -> run-app works.