Tomcat 8 Oracle 11 JNDI Cannot create JDBC driver of class '' for connect URL 'null'

Question

I'm trying to set up a Spring 4 MVC application in STS using a Tomcat 8 server and an Oracle 11g database, and I'm having problems setting up the datasource.

I know there's nothing wrong with the Spring setup because, without the datasource, it works fine.

Here's the datasource bean:

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">
    <property name="jndiName" value="java:comp/env/jdbc/myDB" />
    <property name="resourceRef" value="false" />
</bean>

My web.xml resource ref:

<resource-ref>
   <res-ref-name>jdbc/myDB</res-ref-name>
   <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
   <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

My Tomcat's server.xml resources:

-->

<Resource name="jdbc/myDB"
          global="jdbc/myDB"
          auth="Container"
          type="javax.sql.DataSource"
          username="xxxxx"
          password="yyyyyy"
          url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@xxx.yyy"
          driverClassName="oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver"
          initialSize="20"
          maxWaitMillis="15000"
          maxTotal="75"
          maxIdle="20"
          maxAge="7200000"
          testOnBorrow="true"
          validationQuery="select 1 from dual"
          />

And my context.xml

  <ResourceLink name="jdbc/myDB"
    global="jdbc/myDB"
    type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>

The error I'm getting is this:

ERROR: Unable obtain JDBC Connection java.sql.SQLException: Cannot create JDBC driver of class '' for connect URL 'null' at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp2.BasicDataSource.createConnectionFactory(BasicDataSource.java:2167) at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp2.BasicDataSource.createDataSource(BasicDataSource.java:2037) at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp2.BasicDataSource.getConnection(BasicDataSource.java:1543) at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.connections.internal.DatasourceConnectionProviderImpl.getConnection(DatasourceConnectionProviderImpl.java:122) at org.hibernate.internal.SessionFactoryImpl$1.obtainConnection(SessionFactoryImpl.java:419) at org.hibernate.hql.spi.id.IdTableHelper.executeIdTableCreationStatements(IdTableHelper.java:67) at org.hibernate.hql.spi.id.global.GlobalTemporaryTableBulkIdStrategy.finishPreparation(GlobalTemporaryTableBulkIdStrategy.java:125) at org.hibernate.hql.spi.id.global.GlobalTemporaryTableBulkIdStrategy.finishPreparation(GlobalTemporaryTableBulkIdStrategy.java:42) at org.hibernate.hql.spi.id.AbstractMultiTableBulkIdStrategyImpl.prepare(AbstractMultiTableBulkIdStrategyImpl.java:88) at org.hibernate.internal.SessionFactoryImpl.(SessionFactoryImpl.java:302) at org.hibernate.boot.internal.SessionFactoryBuilderImpl.build(SessionFactoryBuilderImpl.java:445) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:710) at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:726) at org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.LocalSessionFactoryBean.buildSessionFactory(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:511) at org.springframework.orm.hibernate5.LocalSessionFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalSessionFactoryBean.java:495) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1687) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1624) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:555) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:483) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:306) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:197) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:742) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:866) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:542) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:668) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:634) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:682) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:553) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:494) at org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:138) at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:158) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.initServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1183) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1099) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:989) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:4940) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5250) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1419) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1409) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) Caused by: java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver at java.sql.DriverManager.getDriver(Unknown Source) at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp2.BasicDataSource.createConnectionFactory(BasicDataSource.java:2151) ... 44 more

My Tomcat lib directory has the ojdbc jar that I need, and I've even included it on my build script. What could be causing this?

Answer 1

The solution was as simple as it was embarrassingly stupid. Since I was working in Eclipse, Eclipse generates and uses its own server.xml and context.xml documents in a Servers directory. Once I put my datasource into those files, everything worked fine

Answer 2

Check your connection URL. Also, always use the long form of the connection URL where you could pass various connection descriptors.

Example: jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(HOST=myhost)(PORT=1521)(PROTOCOL=tcp))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=myorcldbservicename)))