NullPointerException occurs from SetDefaultLocalBusinessInterfaceProcessor, when an EJB name mentioned in the jboss.xml does not exist, such as there is no EJB3 with @Stateless(name=...) or the name is not specified and the ejb mentioned is not the name of the ejb class.

It should fail with a message indicating the issue, which I think is earlier in the stack.

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:247)
at org.jboss.metadata.process.processor.ejb.jboss.SetDefaultLocalBusinessInterfaceProcessor.process(SetDefaultLocalBusinessInterfaceProcessor.java:114)
at org.jboss.metadata.process.chain.ejb.jboss.JBossMetaDataProcessorChain.process(JBossMetaDataProcessorChain.java:115)
at org.jboss.ejb3.deployers.Ejb3MetadataProcessingDeployer.deploy(Ejb3MetadataProcessingDeployer.java:142)
at org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployerWrapper.deploy(DeployerWrapper.java:179)