title: SonarQube sonar-runner failing due to server error 500
body: <p>So, I've noticed a problem with one of our projects for a while now, and I thought maybe the bug would be fixed by updating, but now that I've gone to the <code>5.3</code> the issue still exists.</p>
  
  <p>I triggered the issue during a <code>sonar-runner</code> execution, and then quickly examined the logs, and saw this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>2016.01.11 16:13:06 ERROR web[o.s.s.w.WebServiceEngine] Fail to process request http://statica:9000/batch/project.protobuf?key=lib-magnet-data
  java.lang.NullPointerException: null
          at com.google.protobuf.Utf8.encodedLength(Utf8.java:378) ~[protobuf-java-3.0.0-beta-1.jar:na]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I suspect the interesting part of the stack is where <code>Sonar</code> calls in to protobuf</p>
  
  <pre><code>at org.sonarqube.ws.WsBatch$WsProjectResponse.getSerializedSize(WsBatch.java:1878) ~[sonar-ws-5.3.jar:na]
          at com.google.protobuf.AbstractMessageLite.writeTo(AbstractMessageLite.java:77) ~[protobuf-java-3.0.0-beta-1.jar:na]
          at org.sonar.server.ws.WsUtils.writeProtobuf(WsUtils.java:49) ~[sonar-server-5.3.jar:na]
          at org.sonar.server.batch.ProjectAction.handle(ProjectAction.java:83) ~[sonar-server-5.3.jar:na]
          at org.sonar.server.ws.WebServiceEngine.execute(WebServiceEngine.java:85) ~[sonar-server-5.3.jar:na]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This used to work, way back when, exactly when is lost to history though.  Is there something that would be obvious to check and fix in our <code>DB</code>?</p>