Document root element "beans", must match DOCTYPE root "null"

Question

I've got an xml parsing error that I can't manage to track down. The error appear when tomcat try to start a spring 3 web application.

Here is the full stack trace as seen in server logs:

org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext Context initialization failed
 org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Line 4 in XML document from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml] is invalid; nested exception is org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: L'élément racine de document "beans" doit correspondre à la racine DOCTYPE "null".
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 4; columnNumber: 134; L'élément racine de document "beans" doit correspondre à la racine DOCTYPE "null".
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:203)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.error(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:134)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:437)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:368)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:325)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.rootElementSpecified(XMLDTDValidator.java:1599)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.handleStartElement(XMLDTDValidator.java:1877)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.startElement(XMLDTDValidator.java:742)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1363)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$ContentDriver.scanRootElementHook(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:1292)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:3138)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:880)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:243)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:348)
    at javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(DocumentBuilder.java:121)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:161)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:125)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:141)
    at org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlWebApplicationContext.java:126)
    at org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlWebApplicationContext.java:94)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.refreshBeanFactory(AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.java:89)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:268)
    at org.springframework.web.context.support.AbstractRefreshableWebApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractRefreshableWebApplicationContext.java:134)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.createWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:230)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:156)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:48)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4728)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5166)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:725)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:701)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:717)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.manageApp(HostConfig.java:1618)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean.invoke(BaseModelMBean.java:300)
    at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:819)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:801)
    at org.apache.catalina.mbeans.MBeanFactory.createStandardContext(MBeanFactory.java:463)
    at org.apache.catalina.mbeans.MBeanFactory.createStandardContext(MBeanFactory.java:413)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean.invoke(BaseModelMBean.java:300)
    at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:819)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:801)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.doOperation(RMIConnectionImpl.java:1466)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.access$300(RMIConnectionImpl.java:76)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl$PrivilegedOperation.run(RMIConnectionImpl.java:1307)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.doPrivilegedOperation(RMIConnectionImpl.java:1399)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.invoke(RMIConnectionImpl.java:828)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.dispatch(UnicastServerRef.java:323)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:200)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:197)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport.serviceCall(Transport.java:196)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport.handleMessages(TCPTransport.java:568)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run0(TCPTransport.java:826)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.lambda$run$254(TCPTransport.java:683)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler$$Lambda$2/1100410420.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run(TCPTransport.java:682)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

And here is the applicationContext.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc" 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-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">
    <context:component-scan base-package="com.mkyong.common.controller" />
    <mvc:annotation-driven />
</beans>

I've already tryed to remove the first line, still got the same error.

By the way here is my pom.xml file (I've allready checked spring framework versions):

<properties>
    <spring.version>3.0.5.RELEASE</spring.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

I've tryed reloading maven dependencies, tryed with various things (for example an empty applicationContext.xml file) but it always give me the same error. The application doesn't even show up in tomcat's manager.

Can some point me in the right direction to fix this error?

Answer 1

In my case this only happened when the library spring.jar was named spring-1.2.2.jar (same hash just different name).

The web server used could also affect the loading order and thus it could "just work" sometimes.

Why I did to solve this was to only use the individual dependencies that I needed (spring-dao and spring-remoting) instead of the full spring-1.2.2 dependency

Answer 2

I landed here, same error but different stack, because I had named my bean XML application.xml. Spring Boot matched the filename thinking it contained XML-based properties.

Solution is fairly obvious :)

Answer 3

1. check the version of your dependencies from both pom.xml and .m2\repository\org\springframework if they are not the same or you have multiple versions, try tag and exclude the version that you dont want(look up exclude configs).

2. close eclipse and delete .m2 and open eclipse and run maven clean install

Answer 4

To finaly answer my own question, it was a problem with my particular version of tomcat.

I simply downloaded tomcat again from their website and the application started flawlessy.

It's possible that this error was coming from a corrupted library file on my end, or something wrong with this particular build of tomcat. I don't really know since I was unable to pinpoint more exactly where the issue is.

Answer 5

This is a library problem. You probably have 2 versions of spring in the classpath.

I got this error because I had 2 spring versions in project build library.I just removed unused old version and it works.

If 2 jars are creating for different spring version then probably you are pointing out different version in dependency or transitive dependency. It may be maven assuming spring default version if you have not mentioned version somewhere.