null pointer exception

@RequestMapping(value = "/jobzilla/user/login", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public ResponseEntity login(@Valid @RequestBody User user) {
return userService.login(user);
}

following is the response part

public ResponseEntity login(@Valid User user) {
ResponseModel response = new ResponseModel();
User userlogin = userRepository.findByEmail(user.getEmail());
System.out.println("email");
if (user.getPassword().equals(userlogin.getPassword())) {
response.setResponseCode(HttpStatus.OK.toString());
response.setResponseDescription("Login Success");
response.setResponseObject(userlogin);
return new ResponseEntity(response, HttpStatus.OK);
}
return new ResponseEntity(response, HttpStatus.NO_CONTENT);
}

Start with the login methods shown in the issue and inspect the values returned by userRepository.findByEmail(user.getEmail()) and the request fields used in the password comparison. Reproduce the null pointer exception, identify which value is null, and verify that the login endpoint handles that case without the exception.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.