I'm getting "org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal SEVERE: Error listenerStart". Some clues?

Question

I'm developing a kind of complex hello world-spring webapp (since it has just the minimum functionality: one controller and one view (made with thymeleaf), simple database connection (oracle) and simple email sending capabilities).

Now I'm trying to deploy this webapp into tomcat-7 using my IDE (IntelliJ Idea 12.1.3 Ultimate) with not success at all while I'm obtaining from console:

Artifact infoSynth:war exploded: Artifact is being deployed, please wait...
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal
SEVERE: Error listenerStart
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal
SEVERE: Context [/synthesizer] startup failed due to previous errors
org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDirectory

And from Tomcat's log:

 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext listenerStart
 SEVERE: error configuring application listener of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1714)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1559)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.DefaultInstanceManager.loadClass(DefaultInstanceManager.java:527)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.DefaultInstanceManager.loadClassMaybePrivileged(DefaultInstanceManager.java:509)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.DefaultInstanceManager.newInstance(DefaultInstanceManager.java:137)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4823)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5381)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:901)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:877)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:633)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.manageApp(HostConfig.java:1551)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean.invoke(BaseModelMBean.java:301)
    at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:836)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:762)
    at org.apache.catalina.mbeans.MBeanFactory.createStandardContext(MBeanFactory.java:622)
    at org.apache.catalina.mbeans.MBeanFactory.createStandardContext(MBeanFactory.java:569)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean.invoke(BaseModelMBean.java:301)
    at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:836)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:762)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.doOperation(RMIConnectionImpl.java:1454)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.access$300(RMIConnectionImpl.java:74)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl$PrivilegedOperation.run(RMIConnectionImpl.java:1295)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.doPrivilegedOperation(RMIConnectionImpl.java:1387)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.invoke(RMIConnectionImpl.java:818)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.dispatch(UnicastServerRef.java:303)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:159)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport.serviceCall(Transport.java:155)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport.handleMessages(TCPTransport.java:535)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run0(TCPTransport.java:790)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run(TCPTransport.java:649)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:895)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:918)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

Before adding the email stuff (taken from here), the webapp just works fine, but when adding email related service and controller everything goes down and the org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal SEVERE: Error listenerStart appears.

I'm using Spring 3.1.1, Thymeleaf 2.0.12, I'm NOT using maven and this is my web.xml:

<!-- Spring -->
<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
    <listener-class>
        org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
    </listener-class>
</listener>

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
        org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet
    </servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Someone suggests something as basic as char enconding. Do you think that could be a valid reason? Can anyone put me in the right direction? Some further reading? Some advice? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The clue that helps me to solve my problem was here: Tomcat Severe listenerStart error

As I need to update my libraries some of these were missed from new artifacts and that was the underlying reason for the error.

SOLVED!

Answer 2

What happened in my case was that I spelled the name of my class wrong in the in web.xml

I was not able to figure out what was going on till I found the localhost.log and saw a classnotfound exception...

For some reason the actual error was not in the catalina.out it was under localhost.yyyy-mm-dd.log in the logs folder in your Tomcat directory

Answer 3

I had a number of XML files which had data (commented data) added before the XML definition (<?xml version="1.0"?>). Once I removed the commented strings and moved them to be after the XML definition, I started my web applications with no issues.