ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener

Question

I am facing some issue in my project which is a Spring MVC project. In this project, for persistence layer, we are using Hibernate.

Below is my web.xml details:

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/beanRefFactory.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
    <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

When I try to run this project, I get the following error:

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1688)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1533)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.DefaultInstanceManager.loadClass(DefaultInstanceManager.java:525)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.DefaultInstanceManager.loadClassMaybePrivileged(DefaultInstanceManager.java:507)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.DefaultInstanceManager.newInstance(DefaultInstanceManager.java:124)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4701)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5260)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1525)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1515)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Here is my classpath jar details:

<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/ant-1.6.5.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/ant-antlr-1.6.5.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/antlr-2.7.6.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/aopalliance-1.0.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/asm-attrs.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/asm.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/aspectjweaver-1.6.9.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/c3p0-0.9.1.2.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/c3p0-0.9.1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/cglib-2.1.3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/cglib-2.2.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/cglib-nodep-2.2.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/commons-collections-3.1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/commons-collections-3.2.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/commons-dbcp-1.4.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/commons-pool-1.5.3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/dom4j-1.6.1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/ehcache-1.2.3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/ejb3-persistence.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/hibernate-annotations.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/hibernate-commons-annotations.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/hibernate-entitymanager.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/hibernate-search.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/hibernate-validator.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/hibernate3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/javassist-3.9.0.GA.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/jta-1.1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/jta.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/lucene-core-2.3.0.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate/oscache-2.4.1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/antlr-runtime-3.0.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/commons-beanutils-1.8.3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/commons-configuration-1.4.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/commons-logging-1.0.4.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/jstl.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/log4j-1.2.16.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.asm-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.beans-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.context-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.context.support-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.core-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.expression-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.jdbc-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.transaction-3.1.1.RELEASE.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.web-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/org.springframework.web.servlet-3.0.0.M3.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/slf4j-api-1.6.6.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.6.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/spring-orm-3.2.0.M1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/spring-oxm-3.2.0.M1.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/spring/standard.jar"/>
<classpathentry kind="lib" path="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib/misslenious/mysql-connector-java-5.1.8-bin.jar"/>

Any pointer or help is very appreciable. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Try with another version of "spring web.jar".

Answer 2

1.Try to check if jar file is getting included in lib folder else sometimes jar files are corrupted try to download a fresh jar and include it. 2. Is it the correct path you are giving for jar files?. May be you are giving the wrong path location.

Answer 3

The ContextLoaderListener is used to integrate Spring with web application.

To resolve ClassNotFoundException Exception perform given below steps:

1. Check Classpath for (spring-web.jar)spring-web-3.2.0.RELEASE.jar (If you are running with spring 3.x, for spring spring 2.0 add spring.jar in classpath)

2. If you are working with Eclipse and maven make sure all dependencies are included properly on build path. (Check Java Build Path)

3. Cleaning your Server by selecting "Clean".

Now try to run your project.

If still you facing any issue and you are using maven based project try below given steps:

1.You need to declare maven-compiler-plugin in parent project

<build>
    [...]
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>1.6</source>
          <target>1.6</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
    [...]
  </build>

Make sure complied classes to be compatible with target (1.6) version.

1. Some times included project dependencies are conflicted, so to resolve conflicts perform these commands,

   mvn dependency:tree -Dverbose -Dincludes=commons-collections

Answer 4

You are missing spring-web jar (spring-web-3.2.0.M2.jar) in your classpath which contains this class.