java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELException

Question

I am working on a web application and I have been facing this issue for a while after looking at multiple post I still was unable to solve this issue. I'm using tomcat 7.0.23 which provides el-api which i believe is the jar thought to be missing. I have not included any jar files in the WEB-INF/lib folder at all I am adding all of my dependencies through pom.xml because of maven. I have attempted all of the possible quick fixes i could think of including maven clean/install server clean(multiple times), project clean, adding tomcat to the targeted runtimes. in my build path is tomcat, jdk1.6, and maven)

The pom.xml and web.xml files that I am using are identical my other team members and they are currently working so i don't believe the issue is there.

Here is the error I am getting when starting the server

SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.apache.myfaces.webapp.StartupServletContextListener 
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELException
at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.AbstractFacesInitializer._createFacesContext(AbstractFacesInitializer.java:403)
at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.AbstractFacesInitializer.initStartupFacesContext(AbstractFacesInitializer.java:376)
at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.StartupServletContextListener.contextInitialized(StartupServletContextListener.java:105)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4765)
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$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.el.ELException
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
at sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader.findClass(Launcher.java:229)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247)
... 13 more

these are the dependices after a maven clean/ install

activation-1.1.jar
antlr-2.7.7.jar
aopalliance-1.0.jar
asm-3.3.1.jar
captcha-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
cmu_time_awb-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
cmu_us_kal-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
cmudict04-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
cmulex-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
cmutimelex-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
commons-beanutils-1.8.3.jar
commons-cli-1.2.jar
commons-codec-1.3.jar
commons-collections-3.2.1.jar
commons-digester-1.8.1.jar
commons-el-1.0.jar
commons-fileupload-1.2.1.jar
commons-io-1.3.1.jar
commons-lang-2.6.jar
commons-logging-1.1.1.jar
commons-pool-1.5.4.jar
commons-validator-1.3.1.jar
cxf-api-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-bindings-soap-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-bindings-xml-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-core-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-frontend-jaxrs-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-frontend-simple-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-transports-http-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-ws-addr-2.7.0.jar
cxf-rt-ws-policy-2.7.0.jar
dom4j-1.6.1.jar
ejb3-persistence-1.0.2.GA.jar
en_us-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
freemarker-2.3.9.jar    
freetts-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
freetts-jsapi10-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
geronimo-javamail_1.4_spec-1.7.1.jar
hibernate-annotations-3.4.0.GA.jar
hibernate-commons-annotations-3.1.0.GA.jar
hibernate-core-3.3.1.GA.jar
javassist-3.4.GA.jar
javax.ws.rs-api-2.0-m10.jar
jaxb-impl-2.1.13.jar
jcaptcha-1.0-mod-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
jdom-1.1.jar
jettison-1.0.jar
jsf-facelets-1.1.6.jar
jta-1.1.jar
jtds-1.2.4.jar
junit-4.7.jar
jxl-2.6.12.jar
log4j-1.2.17.jar
mail-1.4.5.jar
myfaces-api-2.1.0.jar
myfaces-impl-2.1.0.jar
neethi-3.0.2.jar
oro-2.0.8.jar
primefaces-3.3.jar
slf4j-api-1.6.6.jar
slf4j-log4j12-1.6.6.jar
spring-aop-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-asm-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-batch-core-2.0.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-batch-infrastructure-2.0.3.RELEASE.jar
spring-beans-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-context-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-context-support-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-core-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-expression-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-jdbc-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-ldap-core-1.3.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-ldap-core-tiger-1.3.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-ldap-ldif-batch-1.3.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-ldap-ldif-core-1.3.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-ldap-odm-1.3.1.RELEASE.jar
spring-orm-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-test-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-tx-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
spring-web-3.0.6.RELEASE.jar
stax2-api-3.1.1.jar
tomahawk-1.1.6.jar
velocity-1.6.2.jar
woodstox-core-asl-4.1.4.jar
wsdl4j-1.6.2.jar
xml-apis-1.0.b2.jar
xml-resolver-1.2.jar
xmlschema-core-2.0.3.jar
xpp3_min-1.1.4c.jar
xstream-1.3.jar

Answer 1

The “javax.el.ExpressionFactory” class belongs to the “el-api.jar” library, you can download it from Maven central repository.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish.web</groupId>
    <artifactId>el-impl</artifactId>
    <version>2.2</version>
</dependency>

and place it in tomcat/lib directory.

Alternative Solution