@Override
    public String cancelInProgress() {
      // This grossness is necessary because there are instances where the
      // region can exist without having a cache (XML creation)
      checkFailure();
      Cache cache = getCache();
      if (cache == null) {
        return "The cache is not available";
      }
      return cache.getCancelCriterion().cancelInProgress();
    }
There seem to be cases where a region can be created and yet the distributed system is not yet
in place...
geode-core/src/main/java/org/apache/geode/internal/cache/LocalRegion.java