Java APIs

Hi,
We have an application which will copy all the files from a directory on the main server (manager) to all other servers in the cluster.The process is little bit tricky in the sense that all servers will pull the data from manager, copy it to a pending directory and then shut down the rmi process on them, rename pending directory with the original name (some name) and start the rmi process. All the communication is done using RMI calls. We use a GUI tool on windows to initiate this process. We are also running some shell scripts from java in this process. We run this process daily.

The problem is, once in a while we are getting the follwing error on some of the servers in the cluster and the data updates are not happening any more.

Error occurred during initialization of VM
java.lang.Error: Properties init: Could not determine current working directory

We had to start the rmi process on the server again where it failed with the above error and Initiate the process again from GUI. Any ideas, why we get this error? Also, why only once in a while? Our application is running under root context, so i think, running as "root" is not an issue as I see on some of the forums. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you