Revert out r14910. Turns out that the GPR *has* to be able to deal with NULL data values. We fixed this a long time ago on the "put" side, but never dealt with it for "get" - hence, we could "put" ORTE_UNDEF'd attributes in a mapping policy, but couldn't retrieve them. This is why you only encountered the error on comm_spawn and not during the original launch of a job.

This correctly repairs the problem by enabling the GPR's "get" function to correctly handle NULL data values.

This commit was SVN r14916.

The following SVN revision numbers were found above:
  r14910 --> open-mpi/ompi@0757467d77

orte/mca/gpr/replica/functional_layer/gpr_replica_put_get_fn.c

@@ -406,11 +406,16 @@ int orte_gpr_replica_get_fn(orte_gpr_addr_mode_t addr_mode,
                         }
                         ival_list->itag = iptr[j]->itag;
                         ival_list->value.type = iptr[j]->value->type;
+                        /* it is okay for the data to be NULL as we may not have stored a value yet
+                         * or we may be dealing with an UNDEF type
+                         */
+                        if (NULL != iptr[j]->value->data) {
                             if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = orte_dss.copy(&((ival_list->value).data), iptr[j]->value->data, iptr[j]->value->type))) {
                                 ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
                                 OBJ_RELEASE(ival_list);
                                 return rc;
                             }
+                        }
                         opal_list_append(gptr->ival_list, &ival_list->item);
                     }
                 }
@@ -489,10 +494,13 @@ int orte_gpr_replica_get_fn(orte_gpr_addr_mode_t addr_mode,
                 goto CLEANUP;
             }
             kptr[j]->value->type = ival_list->value.type;
+            /* okay to have NULL data */
+            if (NULL != ival_list->value.data) {
                 if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = orte_dss.copy(&((kptr[j]->value)->data), ival_list->value.data, ival_list->value.type))) {
                     ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
                     goto CLEANUP;
                 }
+            }
             OBJ_RELEASE(ival_list);
         }
         OBJ_RELEASE(gptr);
@@ -599,11 +607,14 @@ int orte_gpr_replica_get_conditional_fn(orte_gpr_addr_mode_t addr_mode,
                         }
                         ival_list->itag = iptr[j]->itag;
                         ival_list->value.type = iptr[j]->value->type;
+                        /* it is okay to have NULL data */
+                        if (NULL != iptr[j]->value->data) {
                             if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = orte_dss.copy(&((ival_list->value).data), iptr[j]->value->data, iptr[j]->value->type))) {
                                 ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
                                 OBJ_RELEASE(ival_list);
                                 return rc;
                             }
+                        }
                         opal_list_append(gptr->ival_list, &ival_list->item);
                     }
                 }
@@ -684,10 +695,13 @@ MOVEON:
                 goto CLEANUP;
             }
             kptr[j]->value->type = ival_list->value.type;
+            /* okay to have NULL data */
+            if (NULL != ival_list->value.data) {
                 if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = orte_dss.copy(&((kptr[j]->value)->data), ival_list->value.data, ival_list->value.type))) {
                     ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
                     goto CLEANUP;
                 }
+            }
             OBJ_RELEASE(ival_list);
         }
         OBJ_RELEASE(gptr);

orte/mca/rmaps/base/rmaps_base_registry_fns.c

@@ -596,7 +596,6 @@ int orte_rmaps_base_store_mapping_plan(orte_jobid_t job, opal_list_t *attr_list)
         ORTE_RMAPS_BOOKMARK
     };
     orte_std_cntr_t num_attrs_defd;
-    bool tval = true;
 
     OPAL_TRACE(2);
 
@@ -638,7 +637,7 @@ int orte_rmaps_base_store_mapping_plan(orte_jobid_t job, opal_list_t *attr_list)
                 }
             } else {
                 if (ORTE_SUCCESS != (rc = orte_gpr.create_keyval(&(value->keyvals[j]), attr->key,
-                                                                 ORTE_BOOL, &tval))) {
+                                                                 ORTE_UNDEF, NULL))) {
                     ORTE_ERROR_LOG(rc);
                     OBJ_RELEASE(value);
                     return rc;