If you specify passwords inside XML files, take care when giving special characters in the user names and passwords. According to XML specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/), some special characters can disrupt the configuration. For example, the ampersand character (&) must not appear in the literal form in XML files. It can cause a Java Null Pointer exception. You must wrap it with CDATA (http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_cdata.asp) as shown below or remove the character:
Note the following if you have special characters in the passwords on your jndi.properties file:
It is not possible to use the @ symbol in the username or password.
It is also not possible to use the percentage (%) sign in the password. When building the connection URL, the URL is parsed. This parsing exception happens because the percentage (%) sign acts as the escape character in URL parsing. If using the percentage (%) sign in the connection string is required, use the respective encoding character for the percentage (%) sign in the connection string. For example, if you need to pass adm%in as the password, then the % symbol should be encoded with its respective URL encoding character. Therefore, you have to send it as adm%25in.