Eclipse throws NullPointerException during Maven update

This happens because your m2e plugins are corrupted. To rectify follow the steps below.

1. close eclipse
2. Go to your eclipse workspace folder Under .metadata/pluigns folder, identify all m2e plugins
3. delete them
4. copy the relevant plugins from non-corrupted workspace, either from your machine or from any one of your team members machine
5. restart eclipse

This is what I did to fix it:

1. Removed the project from the workspace
2. Remove .classpath, .project and .settings folder
3. Reimport the project

I'm strongly sure that the problem is not related to the maven plugin; but if it is, i was wandering if you run a mvn eclipse:eclipse before importing the project into eclipse, if you do that and you are using maven 3, I had checked that maven plugin does not support maven 3 properly yet; so I encourage you to make a mvn eclipse:clean, then import the project as an existing project, and after that activate the maven plugin nature from eclipse. I hope it helps,

PS. it seems to be a know eclipse bug (https://www.google.com.uy/search?q=j2ee.componentcore.J2EEModuleVirtualComponent.getReferences(J2EEModuleVirtualComponent.java&oq=j2ee.componentcore.J2EEModuleVirtualComponent.getReferences(J2EEModuleVirtualComponent.java&aqs=chrome..69i57.128j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8); try downloading the last eclipse version; I'm using kepler at work, and I'm working in maven/spring projects and it works fine.

Good luck!