title: AEM6.2: What could cause NullPointerException in UserPropertiesManagerImpl?
body: <p>I'm trying to setup some authoring-only users in my local AEM environment, and getting a blank page on login, with this exception in the logs:</p>
  
  <pre><code>20.09.2017 13:27:18.351 *ERROR* [0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 [1505939238326] GET /projects.html/content/projects HTTP/1.1] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingRequestProcessorImpl service: Uncaught SlingException
  java.lang.NullPointerException: null
      at com.adobe.granite.security.user.internal.UserPropertiesManagerImpl.getUserProperties(UserPropertiesManagerImpl.java:142)
      at org.apache.jsp.libs.granite.ui.components.shell.collectionpage.collectionpage_jsp.getShowOnboarding(collectionpage_jsp.java:127)
      at org.apache.jsp.libs.granite.ui.components.shell.collectionpage.collectionpage_jsp._jspService(collectionpage_jsp.java:346)
      at org.apache.sling.scripting.jsp.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)
      at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:725)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What could be the root cause?</p>