If you get “Cannot read property ‘componentFailures’ of null” while working with VS Code and Salesforce, it means that the org is locked. What causes an org lock? Deployments, some metadata changes, compile all classes I think will also cause this. Pop in to Dev Console and try saving something and it should give you a better message: Organization Administration Locked
How to fix? The 2 easy places to check: Check Deployment Status and Audit Log. Otherwise you’ll need to either wait, ask around, wait some more.