EAP 7 application using EclipseLink fails to start with a NullPointerException when moving to java 11 or 17

Issue

• We deploy an application with EclipseLink and this worked previously with java 8. Switching to java 11 or java 17, we see the app start up fail with a NullPointerException in EntityManagerSetupImpl.predeploy:

ERROR [org.jboss.msc.service.fail] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 110) MSC000001: Failed to start service jboss.persistenceunit."fininfra.ear#fininfraentities": org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.persistenceunit."fininfra.ear#fininfraentities": java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.jboss.as.jpa@7.4.0.GA-redhat-00005//org.jboss.as.jpa.service.PersistenceUnitServiceImpl$1$1.run(PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.java:198)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa@7.4.0.GA-redhat-00005//org.jboss.as.jpa.service.PersistenceUnitServiceImpl$1$1.run(PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.java:128)
    at java.base/java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at org.wildfly.security.elytron-private@1.15.3.Final-redhat-00001//org.wildfly.security.manager.WildFlySecurityManager.doChecked(WildFlySecurityManager.java:664)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa@7.4.0.GA-redhat-00005//org.jboss.as.jpa.service.PersistenceUnitServiceImpl$1.run(PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.java:213)
    at org.jboss.threads@2.4.0.Final-redhat-00001//org.jboss.threads.ContextClassLoaderSavingRunnable.run(ContextClassLoaderSavingRunnable.java:35)
    at org.jboss.threads@2.4.0.Final-redhat-00001//org.jboss.threads.EnhancedQueueExecutor.safeRun(EnhancedQueueExecutor.java:1990)
    at org.jboss.threads@2.4.0.Final-redhat-00001//org.jboss.threads.EnhancedQueueExecutor$ThreadBody.doRunTask(EnhancedQueueExecutor.java:1486)
    at org.jboss.threads@2.4.0.Final-redhat-00001//org.jboss.threads.EnhancedQueueExecutor$ThreadBody.run(EnhancedQueueExecutor.java:1377)
    at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:829)
    at org.jboss.threads@2.4.0.Final-redhat-00001//org.jboss.threads.JBossThread.run(JBossThread.java:513)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.eclipse.persistence//org.eclipse.persistence.internal.jpa.EntityManagerSetupImpl.predeploy(EntityManagerSetupImpl.java:2027)
    at org.eclipse.persistence//org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider.createContainerEntityManagerFactoryImpl(PersistenceProvider.java:347)
    at org.eclipse.persistence//org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(PersistenceProvider.java:313)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa@7.4.0.GA-redhat-00005//org.jboss.as.jpa.service.PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.java:366)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa@7.4.0.GA-redhat-00005//org.jboss.as.jpa.service.PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.access$1300(PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.java:71)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa@7.4.0.GA-redhat-00005//org.jboss.as.jpa.service.PersistenceUnitServiceImpl$1$1.run(PersistenceUnitServiceImpl.java:190)
    ... 10 more

Caused by: javax.persistence.PersistenceException: WFLYJPA0057: PersistenceProvider 'org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider' not found
    at org.jboss.as.jpa.processor.PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.lookupProvider(PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.java:1003)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa.processor.PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.addPuService(PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.java:266)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa.processor.PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.handleEarDeployment(PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.java:228)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa.processor.PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.deploy(PersistenceUnitServiceHandler.java:135)
    at org.jboss.as.jpa.processor.PersistenceBeginInstallProcessor.deploy(PersistenceBeginInstallProcessor.java:52)
    at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:182)
    ... 8 more