Class not found loading Grails application - after grails upgrade to 2.3

Question

I am upgrading grails version from 2.1.1 to 2.3.0 with the help of official grails doc.

Honestly, I followed the steps one by one. I also had upgraded one of my grails project to 2.3.0 months before successfully. Unfortunately this time am failing. Following error is hitting me hard.

| Error 2013-11-09 17:26:26,933 [localhost-startStop-1] ERROR context.ContextLoader  - Context initialization failed
Message: Error creating bean with name 'grailsApplication' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.codehaus.groovy.grails.exceptions.GrailsConfigurationException: Class not found loading Grails application: eccount.MainController
    Line | Method
->>  334 | innerRun  in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
|    166 | run       in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
|   1110 | runWorker in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor
|    603 | run       in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker
^    722 | run . . . in java.lang.Thread

Caused by GrailsConfigurationException: Class not found loading Grails application: eccount.MainController
->>  334 | innerRun  in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
|    166 | run       in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
|   1110 | runWorker in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor
|    603 | run       in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker
^    722 | run . . . in java.lang.Thread

Caused by ClassNotFoundException: eccount.MainController
->>  366 | run       in java.net.URLClassLoader$1
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
|    355 | run       in     ''
|    354 | findClass in java.net.URLClassLoader
|    423 | loadClass in java.lang.ClassLoader
|    334 | innerRun  in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync
|    166 | run       in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
|   1110 | runWorker in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor
|    603 | run       in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker
^    722 | run . . . in java.lang.Thread
| Error 2013-11-09 17:26:27,032 [localhost-startStop-1] ERROR context.GrailsContextLoader  - Error initializing the application: Error creating bean with name 'grailsApplication' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.codehaus.groovy.grails.exceptions.GrailsConfigurationException: Class not found loading Grails application: eccount.MainController
Message: Error creating bean with name 'grailsApplication' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is org.codehaus.groovy.grails.exceptions.GrailsConfigurationException: Class not found loading Grails application: eccount.MainController
    Line | Method
->>  334 | innerRun  in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
|    166 | run       in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
|   1110 | runWorker in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor
|    603 | run       in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker
^    722 | run . . . in java.lang.Thread

Caused by GrailsConfigurationException: Class not found loading Grails application: eccount.MainController
->>  334 | innerRun  in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
|    166 | run       in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
|   1110 | runWorker in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor
|    603 | run       in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker
^    722 | run . . . in java.lang.Thread

Caused by ClassNotFoundException: eccount.MainController
->>  366 | run       in java.net.URLClassLoader$1
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
|    355 | run       in     ''
|    354 | findClass in java.net.URLClassLoader
|    423 | loadClass in java.lang.ClassLoader
|    334 | innerRun  in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync
|    166 | run       in java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
|   1110 | runWorker in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor
|    603 | run       in java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker
^    722 | run . . . in java.lang.Thread

plugins section of BuildConfig.groovy

  plugins {

        runtime ":hibernate:$slurp.app.hibernate.version"
        build   ":tomcat:$slurp.app.tomcat.version"
        compile ':scaffolding:1.0.0'
    }

My applicationContext.xml is as below which I don't think is incorrect.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean id="grailsApplication" class="org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons.GrailsApplicationFactoryBean">
        <description>Grails application factory bean</description>
        <property name="grailsDescriptor" value="/WEB-INF/grails.xml" />
        <property name="grailsResourceLoader" ref="grailsResourceLoader" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="pluginManager" class="org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins.GrailsPluginManagerFactoryBean">
        <description>A bean that manages Grails plugins</description>
        <property name="grailsDescriptor" value="/WEB-INF/grails.xml" />
        <property name="application" ref="grailsApplication" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="grailsConfigurator" class="org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons.spring.GrailsRuntimeConfigurator">
        <constructor-arg>
            <ref bean="grailsApplication" />
        </constructor-arg>
        <property name="pluginManager" ref="pluginManager" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="grailsResourceLoader" class="org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons.GrailsResourceLoaderFactoryBean" />

    <bean id="characterEncodingFilter" class="org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter">
        <property name="encoding">
            <value>utf-8</value>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <bean id="conversionService" class="org.springframework.context.support.ConversionServiceFactoryBean" />
</beans>

I went through following Hit and Trials(H&T) but couldn't succeed.

H&T 1)

$ grails clean
$ grails run-app

H&T 2)

$ rm -r ~/.grails/2.3.0/projects/gccount
$ grails clean
$ grails run-app

H&T 3)

3.1) replaced grails.project.dependency.resolver="maven" to grails.project.dependency.resolver="ivy". Also tried coming back to maven again.

3.2)

$ grails clean
$ grails run-app

H&T 4)

$ rm -r target/
$ grails clean
$ grails run-app

Answer 1

I have also found the same exception When i have remove some package directory in my domain class -> Class not found loading Grails application

The reason for the Exception was that wrong package imported in some file.

Answer 2

Closely looking over MainController, it appears as below

package cashless

class MainController {

    def index() { }
}

It was working fine in earlier version maybe because it's contextPath(app.name="cashless") was same to the package cashless which I changed to gccount during upgrade. Though it is not imported anywhere as eccount.MainController directly.

Just updating package solved the issue.

package eccount

class MainController {

    def index() { }
}