NullPointerExceptions during project area initialization

In RTC 4 - ccm, a project area called "RAM Lifecycle" was created from a template. But for some unknown reason the project area was not initialized. On the Active Project Areas page, the action to initialize the project was enabled. When I click on it, an info message shows "Project area intialization in progress..." but it never finishes. In the ccm.log there are several same stack traces with NullPointerExceptions:
2012-10-25 09:39:48,609 [              WebContainer : 1] ERROR com.ibm.team.process.common                         -
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.util.KeyedHashSet$EquinoxSetIterator.hasNext(KeyedHashSet.java:462)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.resolver.StateImpl.getFragments(StateImpl.java:598)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.resolver.BundleDescriptionImpl.getFragments(BundleDescriptionImpl.java:160)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.resolver.StateHelperImpl.addReference(StateHelperImpl.java:300)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.resolver.StateHelperImpl.buildReferences(StateHelperImpl.java:293)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.resolver.StateHelperImpl.buildReferences(StateHelperImpl.java:287)
    at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.resolver.StateHelperImpl.sortBundles(StateHelperImpl.java:239)
    at com.ibm.team.process.internal.service.ProjectAreaInitializerRegistry.getInitializers(ProjectAreaInitializerRegistry.java:117)
    at com.ibm.team.process.internal.service.InitializeProjectAreaOperation.loadInitializers(InitializeProjectAreaOperation.java:64)
    at com.ibm.team.process.internal.service.InitializeProjectAreaOperation.run(InitializeProjectAreaOperation.java:49)

As a result, using RTC client API calls, the 3 special attributes for the workitem types needed in RAM can't be found even though they show up on the web UI. I use the following API to retrieve the attributes... all return null.
  IProjectAreaHandle ph = getProjectHandle(hProjectArea);
  IWorkItemClient wiClient = getClientLibrary(IWorkItemClient.class);
  IWorkItemType witype = wiClient.findWorkItemType(ph, workflowIdentifier, null);
  IAttribute repoattr = wiClient.findAttribute(ph, PROPERTY_REPOID, null);
  IAttribute assetLinkattr = wiClient.findAttribute(ph, PROPERTY_ASSET_LINK, null);
  IAttribute activeStateHistoryattr = wiClient.findAttribute(ph, PROPERTY_STATE_HISTORY_ACTIVE, null);

Any ideas as to what could be wrong with the project area initialization?