Apache TomEE (Tomcat Java EE) won't start on Windows (java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal/unsupported escape sequence near index 3)

Question

I get the following error when trying to start TomEE on Windows:

SEVERE: OpenEJBContextConfig.processAnnotationsFile: failed. java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal/unsupported escape sequence near index 3 C:\Users\Ed\moba\workspace.metadata.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp1\wtpwebapps\OpenJPATest\WEB-INF\classes ^ at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Pattern.java:1713) at java.util.regex.Pattern.escape(Pattern.java:2177) at java.util.regex.Pattern.atom(Pattern.java:1952) at java.util.regex.Pattern.sequence(Pattern.java:1885) at java.util.regex.Pattern.expr(Pattern.java:1752) at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Pattern.java:1460) at java.util.regex.Pattern.(Pattern.java:1133) at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Pattern.java:823) at java.lang.String.replaceFirst(String.java:2146) at org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBContextConfig.getSubPackage(OpenEJBContextConfig.java:192) at org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBContextConfig.processAnnotationsFile(OpenEJBContextConfig.java:151) at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.webConfig(ContextConfig.java:1296) at org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBContextConfig.webConfig(OpenEJBContextConfig.java:89) at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:878) at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:369) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5173) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

Does anyone know why this is happening and what I can do to fix it?

Answer 1

I actually just answered a similar question here: other stackoverflow question

To reiterate:

It looks like the current Windows release is broken. You'll have to download a fixed version as suggested in the bug report found here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/TOMEE-436

The 1.5.1 snapshots are available for download here: 1.5.1-SNAPSHOT