Is there a resource somewhere that would help me figure out why a trigger I wrote is causing web-based leads to be rejected? I get an email containing each lead when this trigger is running. Or, can someone simply TELL me what is wrong here? "Unexpected exception" isn't very helpful (see below). :-/

This trigger searches for duplicate leads (or accounts if the code is uncommented) and marks how many it found into a couple of fields - essentially a dupe checker (based on email address which is how this company operates) so we can filter them as needed - non-dupes go through, dupes get manhandled.

The code works FINE (though this version is several revisions later) except for rejecting web-based lead insertions from web-forms.

Thanks for any guidance. ;-) Code is below.

trigger emailDuplicateCounter_LEAD on Lead (before insert) {
//trigger emailDuplicateCounter_LEAD on Lead (before insert, before update) {

// ORIGINAL...
// http://www.salesforce.com/docs/developer/cookbook/Content/apex_dedupe.htm

    Map<String, Lead> leadMap = new Map<String, Lead>([select id, Email from Lead WHERE Name != '' ]);

// Reset Dupe Email (leads) marker; add email(s) to list of those to check
    for (Lead leadLoop : System.Trigger.new) { 
//  ins 1 + 2
        leadMap.put(leadLoop.Email, leadLoop);
    }

// Single dbase query, find all leads with same email address as any of the leads being ins 
    for ( Lead leadLoop2 : [SELECT Email FROM Lead WHERE Email IN :leadMap.KeySet()] ) {
        Lead newLead = leadMap.get(leadLoop2.Email);
//  ins 3
        if (System.Trigger.isInsert) { 
            newLead.Dupe_Email_in_leads_When_Created__c = true; 
        }
    }

// check Accounts similarly...         ** COMMENTED FOR NOW **
//    for ( Account account : [SELECT PersonEmail FROM Account WHERE PersonEmail IN :leadMap.KeySet()] ) {
//        Lead newLead = leadMap.get(account.PersonEmail);
//  ins 4
//        if (System.Trigger.isInsert) { 
            //newLead.Dupe_Email_in_accounts_When_Created__c = true; 
//        }
    }

// code to fix/ insert later with more logic...
// 1     leadLoop.Dupe_Email_in_leads__c = false;
// 2     leadLoop.Dupe_Email_in_Accounts__c = false;
// 3     newLead.Dupe_Email_in_leads__c = true;    would need on UPDATE, misfires....
// 4     newLead.Dupe_Email_in_accounts__c = true;   similar to above...

}

The error on the emails that contain the non-inserted lead is:

Salesforce could not create this lead because of the reason listed below. For more information about this error or help with Web-to-Case-Lead, please contact Customer Support.

Reason: Apex trigger emailDuplicateCounter_LEAD caused an unexpected exception, contact your administrator: emailDuplicateCounter_LEAD: execution of BeforeInsert

caused by: System.NullPointerException: Attempt to de-reference a null object: Trigger.emailDuplicateCounter_LEAD

Attribution to: AMM

Possible Suggestion/Solution #1

Whenever we try to get from Map we usually put a null check to avoid null pointer exceptions

For example

for ( Account account : [SELECT PersonEmail FROM Account WHERE PersonEmail  IN:leadMap.KeySet()] ) {
  //        Lead newLead = leadMap.get(account.PersonEmail);

Modified like this for ( Account account : [SELECT PersonEmail FROM Account WHERE PersonEmail IN:leadMap.KeySet()] ) {

      if(leadMap.get(account.PersonEmail)!=null){//Avoid null pointer exception
      //        Lead newLead = leadMap.get(account.PersonEmail);

Looks like we will have to put null checks and should solve the issue .Say if some value is null in any of fields null pointer exception will come

Attribution to: Mohith Shrivastava
This content is remixed from stackoverflow or stackexchange. Please visit https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/3376