Spring boot project failing with NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()Ljava/lang/String

Question

I have a simple Spring Boot project, I have shown the pom file below

<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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.abccompany</groupId>
    <artifactId>simpletest</artifactId>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>jsoncomponenttest Maven Webapp</name>
    <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.2.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jdbc</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
        <finalName>simpletest</finalName>
    </build>
</project>

The project was working fine, but suddenly when I am running this Spring boot project in eclipse, I am getting below exception

ava.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122) [na:1.8.0_91]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:192) [na:1.8.0_91]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:911) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:890) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1403) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1393) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [na:1.8.0_91]
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142) [na:1.8.0_91]
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617) [na:1.8.0_91]
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) [na:1.8.0_91]
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    ... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [Pipeline[StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5099) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    ... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [org.apache.catalina.authenticator.NonLoginAuthenticator[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.startInternal(StandardPipeline.java:170) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    ... 8 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()Ljava/lang/String;
    at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.startInternal(AuthenticatorBase.java:1125) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
    ... 10 common frames omitted

I have looked at this question Getting NoSuchMethodError:javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()

And tried most of the options mentioned in solution, but nothing is working. Initially I thought it might be servlet-api issue, so switched to jetty, but then started getting another exception with addServlet , but now switched back to Tomcat.

Answer 1

For me, I was able to resolve this issue by removing another servlet-api dependency which still seemed to be in my pom.xml. It was conflicting with the servlet-api referenced by another library I used.

So for others encountering this issue: try to remove servlet-api dependency from your pom.xml.

Answer 2

I was able to resolve the issue by changing Java Runtime Environment. I was using jdk1.8 which had some javaee.jar file fetching servlet-api. When I switched JRE to jdk1.7, it started working.