Maven dependency and Tomcat exception in Struts 2.5.5

Question

I have a problem with the environment configuration. I'm using Eclipse neon.1, Tomcat 8.5, Java version 1.8.0_77 and I'm trying to create a simple Hello World with Struts 2.5.5.

If I add manually Struts 2.5.5 JARs to the WEB-INF/lib folder everything is OK, but if I add Struts dependency via Maven, when I run my project on Server, Tomcat launches an Index Out Of Bound Exception.

This problem occurs only with the last version of Struts (2.5.5). In fact, if I add struts2-core 2.3.31 to the pom.xml (instead of 2.5.5), everything works well.

I already tried using Tomcat 7, Tomcat 8 and Eclipse Mars.

I created a Dynamic Web Project and then I converted it to a Maven project; I also created directly a Maven project, but the problem persists.

Any idea to solve the problem?

Edit: I found the entire stack trace of exception in the .log file of .metadata folder.

!ENTRY org.eclipse.wst.server.core 4 0 2016-12-01 19:21:09.917
!MESSAGE Could not publish to the server.
!STACK 0
java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException
    at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:338)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.compiler.util.Util.getInputStreamAsByteArray(Util.java:500)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.core.ToolFactory.createDefaultClassFileReader(ToolFactory.java:311)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.archive.JavaEEArchiveUtilities.isEJBArchive(JavaEEArchiveUtilities.java:909)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.archive.JavaEEArchiveUtilities.refineForJavaEE(JavaEEArchiveUtilities.java:615)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.archive.JavaEEArchiveUtilities.openArchive(JavaEEArchiveUtilities.java:377)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.archive.JavaEEArchiveUtilities.openBinaryArchive(JavaEEArchiveUtilities.java:297)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.componentcore.JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper$ArchiveCache.openArchive(JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.java:612)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.componentcore.JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.openArchive(JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.java:470)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.componentcore.JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.getUniqueArchive(JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.java:422)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.componentcore.JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.getArchive(JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.java:415)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.componentcore.JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.getJavaEEQuickPeek(JavaEEBinaryComponentHelper.java:98)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.project.JavaEEProjectUtilities.getJ2EEComponentType(JavaEEProjectUtilities.java:273)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.common.exportmodel.JEEHeirarchyExportParticipant.isChildModule(JEEHeirarchyExportParticipant.java:42)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.flat.GlobalHeirarchyParticipant.isChildModule(GlobalHeirarchyParticipant.java:41)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.flat.FlatVirtualComponent.isChildModule(FlatVirtualComponent.java:367)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.flat.FlatVirtualComponent.addUsedReferences(FlatVirtualComponent.java:305)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.flat.FlatVirtualComponent.treeWalk(FlatVirtualComponent.java:235)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.flat.FlatVirtualComponent.cacheResources(FlatVirtualComponent.java:188)
    at org.eclipse.wst.common.componentcore.internal.flat.FlatVirtualComponent.fetchResources(FlatVirtualComponent.java:118)
    at org.eclipse.wst.web.internal.deployables.FlatComponentDeployable.members(FlatComponentDeployable.java:227)
    at org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.internal.deployables.J2EEFlexProjDeployable.members(J2EEFlexProjDeployable.java:267)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.internal.ModulePublishInfo.fillCache(ModulePublishInfo.java:314)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.internal.ModulePublishInfo.getDelta(ModulePublishInfo.java:396)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.internal.ServerPublishInfo.getDelta(ServerPublishInfo.java:366)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.internal.Server.getPublishedResourceDelta(Server.java:1578)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.model.ServerBehaviourDelegate.getPublishedResourceDelta(ServerBehaviourDelegate.java:698)
    at org.eclipse.jst.server.tomcat.core.internal.TomcatServerBehaviour.getPublishedResourceDelta(TomcatServerBehaviour.java:958)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.model.ServerBehaviourDelegate.computeDelta(ServerBehaviourDelegate.java:874)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.model.ServerBehaviourDelegate.publish(ServerBehaviourDelegate.java:909)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.model.ServerBehaviourDelegate.publish(ServerBehaviourDelegate.java:774)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.internal.Server.publishImpl(Server.java:3172)
    at org.eclipse.wst.server.core.internal.Server$PublishJob.run(Server.java:345)
    at org.eclipse.core.internal.jobs.Worker.run(Worker.java:55)

This is my pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>basic_struts</groupId>
  <artifactId>basic_struts</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>

  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
        <artifactId>struts2-core</artifactId>
        <version>2.5.5</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>

  <build>
  <finalName>basic_struts</finalName>
    <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.5.1</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>1.8</source>
          <target>1.8</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.0</version>
        <configuration>
          <warSourceDirectory>WebContent</warSourceDirectory>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Answer 1

After many days of research, I understood how to solve the problem and now I tell you how to do it.

1. Close Eclipse;
2. Remove the content of C:\Users[username].m2\repository (if you are using Windows) or ~/.m2/repository (if you are using macOS);
3. Reopen Eclipse, right click on the project, select "Maven", "Update Project...", check on "Force Update of Snapshots/Releases" and then click "OK".
4. Run your project on Tomcat Server: it should work now!

I hope this mini guide can help those who will have the same problem.