The 8u backport of 8216064 introduces a regression when "settings" is not specified. In particular, this line here [1] may trigger a NPE when "settings" is null. Please notice how that case is handled here [2].

Update: seems to me that JDK baseline might be affected by this issue too.

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[1] - http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8u/jdk8u-jfr-incubator/jdk/rev/aaf089a18674#l1.17
[2] - http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8u/jdk8u-jfr-incubator/jdk/rev/aaf089a18674#l1.22