Adverts
Forgetting to put f:view around your jsf content leads to this rather cryptic error message (this is the root cause of a JasperException):
java.lang.NullPointerException at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.encodeBegin(UIComponentBase.java:683) at javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot.encodeBegin(UIViewRoot.java:324) at javax.faces.webapp.UIComponentTag.encodeBegin(UIComponentTag.java:591) at javax.faces.webapp.UIComponentTag.doStartTag(UIComponentTag.java:478)