Resolve activation Module not found issue in WSO2 ESB 4.8.0

When you were upgrading your WSO2 ESB pfrom 4.7.0 or older version to 4.8.0, you might notice the following issue.  Caused by: org.wso2.carbon.CarbonException: Axis Module not found for : activation-2.1.2

This error happens if you migrate the ESB_HOME/repository/deployment/server/servicemetafiles/ folder to the ESB 4.8.0 or a later version. The reason is that activation module is not shipped with ESB anymore, but the servicemetafiles from the older version might still contain references to activation module. Since ESB cannot find that module, it throws the following error, and the proxy service fails to deploy.

To resolve this issue, you have to edit the metafiles to remove references to activation module. There, you might notice, the references like follows. The version might differ.

         <module name="activation" version="2.1.2" type="engagedModules"/>

Simply remove this line from the metafile, and then the proxy services will deploy successfully. You can create a script to do this if you have several proxy services / axis2 services.

[2014-02-10 13:02:09,156] ERROR - PersistenceMetaDataDeployer Unable to handle service initialization. Service: myProxyService
org.wso2.carbon.core.persistence.PersistenceException: Unable to handle service initialization. Service: myProxyService
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.persistence.AbstractPersistenceManager.handleExceptionWithRollback(AbstractPersistenceManager.java:582)
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.persistence.ServicePersistenceManager.handleExistingServiceInit(ServicePersistenceManager.java:747)
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.persistence.file.deployer.PersistenceMetaDataDeployer.deploy(PersistenceMetaDataDeployer.java:96)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.repository.util.DeploymentFileData.deploy(DeploymentFileData.java:136)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.DeploymentEngine.doDeploy(DeploymentEngine.java:807)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.repository.util.WSInfoList.update(WSInfoList.java:144)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.RepositoryListener.update(RepositoryListener.java:377)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.RepositoryListener.checkServices(RepositoryListener.java:254)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.RepositoryListener.startListener(RepositoryListener.java:371)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.scheduler.SchedulerTask.checkRepository(SchedulerTask.java:59)
    at org.apache.axis2.deployment.scheduler.SchedulerTask.run(SchedulerTask.java:67)
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.deployment.CarbonDeploymentSchedulerTask.runAxisDeployment(CarbonDeploymentSchedulerTask.java:79)
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.deployment.CarbonDeploymentSchedulerTask.run(CarbonDeploymentSchedulerTask.java:124)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:439)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRunAndReset(FutureTask.java:317)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.runAndReset(FutureTask.java:150)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$101(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:98)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.runPeriodic(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)
    at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:204)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:895)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:918)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
Caused by: org.wso2.carbon.CarbonException: Axis Module not found for : activation-2.1.2
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.persistence.AbstractPersistenceManager.getExistingAxisModule(AbstractPersistenceManager.java:562)
    at org.wso2.carbon.core.persistence.ServicePersistenceManager.handleExistingServiceInit(ServicePersistenceManager.java:472)
    ... 20 more