GitBlit v1.6.1 doesn't start with sym links in RepositorySubfolders

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.Set in gitblit.properties git.repositoriesFolder = /path/gitblit_links
1a. and git.searchRepositoriesSubfolders = true
1b. and git.searchRecursionDepth = -1

2./path/gitblit_links contains a set of folders like GroupA, GroupB & GroupC
3. GroupA, GroupB & GroupC contain the bare repos, which are sym links, like 
this:
ls -l /path/gitblit_links/*

/path/gitblit_links/GroupA:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user grp 53 May 13  2014 RepoA.git -> 
/realPath/repositories/GroupA/RepoA.git
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user grp 53 May 13  2014 RepoB.git -> 
/realPath/repositories/GroupA/RepoB.git

/path/gitblit_links/GroupB:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 u1gitcld elsgit 43 Jul  8 07:35 RepoC.git -> 
/realPath/repositories/GroupB/RepoC.git
lrwxrwxrwx 1 u1gitcld elsgit 42 Aug  4 11:10 RepoD.git -> 
/realPath/repositories/GroupB/RepoD.git

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I expect Tomcat to start.  Instead, I see the following error on startup:
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] ----[com.gitblit.manager.IRepositoryManager]----
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] Repositories folder : /path/gitblit_links
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] Lucene will process indexed branches every 2 
minutes.
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] Garbage Collector (GC) is disabled.
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] Mirror service is disabled.
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] Alias UTF-9 & UTF-18 encodings as UTF-8 in JGit
2014-12-22 15:09:35 [INFO ] Preparing 14 day commit cache. please wait...
Dec 22, 2014 3:09:36 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext listenerStart
SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of 
class com.gitblit.servlet.GitblitContext
java.lang.NullPointerException

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
v1.6.2 (War distribution)
apache-tomcat-7.0.42
64 bit Oracle JDK jdk1.7.0_40
Red Hat 4.1.2-52

Please provide any additional information below.
Perhaps, related to Issue 
Worked fine with ver 1.5.1 (although with different gitblit.properties, of 
course).  In this case, I went ahead and modified the new gitblit.properties 
(as opposed to copying forward the one that worked in 1.5.1).
Starts just fine with the default value (of course, there are no repos)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by sonia.sh...@elsevier.com on 22 Dec 2014 at 8:33

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Sorry for the confusion -- Subject title says 1.6.1, but it is actually v 1.6.2.

Original comment by sonia.sh...@elsevier.com on 22 Dec 2014 at 8:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Also -- I wrote Perhaps related to Issue, but didn't provide the #.  This 
appears similar to issue #511.  

Original comment by sonia.sh...@elsevier.com on 23 Dec 2014 at 4:17