Nullpointer exception when deserializing a class with Xstream

Question

I am using a fairly old version of Xstream to (de)serialize contents (v1.2.2). After switching to Java 1.8_25, I sometimes get exception when deserializing a particular instance of a class:

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.<init>(ObjectStreamClass.java:457)
    at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.lookup(ObjectStreamClass.java:365)
    at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.getClassDataLayout0(ObjectStreamClass.java:1202)
    at java.io.ObjectStreamClass.getClassDataLayout(ObjectStreamClass.java:1151)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readSerialData(ObjectInputStream.java:1881)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1801)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:371)
    at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.PureJavaReflectionProvider.instantiateUsingSerialization(PureJavaReflectionProvider.java:100)
    at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.PureJavaReflectionProvider.newInstance(PureJavaReflectionProvider.java:57)
    at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.instantiateNewInstance(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:257)
    at com.thoughtworks.xstream.converters.reflection.AbstractReflectionConverter.unmarshal(AbstractReflectionConverter.java:124)
    at com.thoughtworks.xstream.core.TreeUnmarshaller.convert(TreeUnmarshaller.java:56)

What could be the problem? What should I look for in the deserialized class?