Spring Boot Tomcat Container Deployment Errors

Question

I would like to deploy my Spring Boot application as a WAR to a Tomcat Container, but Tomcat is unable to start the container. I have followed the documentation, Traditional Deployment Section from the Spring Boot Reference. The container's thread size is set to -Xss 4068, but I'm still getting a stack overflow error.

Here is the stack trace:

Dec 08, 2014 12:01:13 AM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(C:\Tomcat\customer\webapps\customer-site-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-
INF\lib\javax.servlet-api-3.0.1.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 3.0, section 10.7.2. 
Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
Dec 08, 2014 12:01:15 AM org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase addChildInternal
SEVERE: ContainerBase.addChild: start: 
org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[customers-prototype.mydomain.com].StandardContext[/customer-site-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT]]
  at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:154)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:901)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:877)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:649)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:1081)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployWar.run(HostConfig.java:1877)
  at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
  at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:334)
  at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:166)
  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
  at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unable to complete the scan for annotations for web application [/customer-site-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT] due to a StackOverflowError. Possible root causes include a too low setting for -Xss and illegal cyclic inheritance dependencies. The class hierarchy being processed was [com.ibm.db2.jcc.am.mf->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object->java.lang.Object]
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.checkHandlesTypes(ContextConfig.java:2126)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsStream(ContextConfig.java:2072)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsJar(ContextConfig.java:1947)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsUrl(ContextConfig.java:1913)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotations(ContextConfig.java:1898)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.webConfig(ContextConfig.java:1330)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:889)
  at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:386)
  at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:117)
  at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5380)
  at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
... 11 more

Dec 08, 2014 12:01:15 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
SEVERE: Error deploying web application archive C:\Tomcat\customer\webapps\customer-site-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.war
java.lang.IllegalStateException: ContainerBase.addChild: start: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component
[StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[customers-prototype.mydomain.com].StandardContext[/customer-site-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT]]
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:904)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:877)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:649)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:1081)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployWar.run(HostConfig.java:1877)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:334)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:166)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)

Dec 08, 2014 12:01:15 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR

My pom.xml has the following Spring Boot dependency with the spring-boot-starter-tomcat scope set to provided as described in the documentation.

POM.XML

    <!-- Spring Boot -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- Spring Security -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.security.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.security.version}</version>
    </dependency>

UPDATED: Additional pom dependencies:

<dependency>
   <groupId>com.ibm.db2</groupId>
   <artifactId>db2jcc4</artifactId>
   <version>9.7.0.9</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.ibm.db2</groupId>
   <artifactId>db2jcc_license</artifactId>
   <version>9.7.0.9</version>
</dependency>

My main class extends the SpringBootServletInitializer as described in the documents:

CustomerSiteMain.java:

@Configuration
@ComponentScan("com.mydomain")
@EnableAutoConfiguration
public class CustomerMain extends SpringBootServletInitializer{

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application){
        return application
            .showBanner(true)
            .parent(Global.class)
            .sources(CustomerMain.class)
            .profiles("container");
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(CustomerMain.class, args);
    }

   @Bean
   @Profile(CustomerSiteProfiles.STANDALONE)
   public ServletRegistrationBean h2Console() {
      ServletRegistrationBean reg = new ServletRegistrationBean(new WebServlet(), "/console/*");
      reg.setLoadOnStartup(1);
      return reg;
   }

   @Bean
   public ServletRegistrationBean servletRegistrationBean(){
       return new ServletRegistrationBean(new PhotoSheetPDFServlet(), "/items/factsheet/*");
   }
}

Answer 1

The above helped me out as well. I had a similar issue and kept getting WebappClassLoader logs like this:

2015-03-06 20:32:53,741 org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader   validateJarFile INFO: validateJarFile(/usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/gs-producing-web-service-0.1.0/WEB-INF/lib/tomcat-embed-core-8.0.15.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 3.0, section 10.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
2015-03-06 20:32:53,742 org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile INFO: validateJarFile(/usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/gs-producing-web-service-0.1.0/WEB-INF/lib/tomcat-embed-el-8.0.15.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 3.0, section 10.7.2. Offending class: javax/el/Expression.class

which were a clue to this SEVERE error I got with the web application loading.

2015-03-06 20:32:54,704 org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR SEVERE: Error deploying web application archive /usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/gs-producing-web-service-0.1.0.war

I was developing a web service in my case and these depencies (web service not web) in my pom.xml

<dependencies>
    <!-- tag::springws[] -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-ws</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>wsdl4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>wsdl4j</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- end::springws[] -->
     <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency> 
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency> 
</dependencies>

But I was forgetting to do a clean as well before a maven install. This cost my a few hours because my tomcat libraries were still there.
USER BEWARE that you should also do a maven clean when you follow Springs https://spring.io/guides/gs/convert-jar-to-war/ and http://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/#howto-create-a-deployable-war-file

This is great now for more rapid development. Thanks

Answer 2

It seems like your Tomcat is trying to load some classes that have already been loaded. Try to exclude an embeded tomcat from spring-boot-starter-web dependency

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>