It seems reasonable to work when you drop the context descriptor under /WEB-INF/classes
because this location is the root of classpath
.
So try loading with below uri (without prefix) if you want to drop your applicationContext.xml under WEB-INF folder:
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml");
Otherwise, can you explain why are you trying to load your applicationContext.xml within your web application?
Alternatively, you can load your application context programatically as follows:
ApplicationContext ctx = WebApplicationContextUtils.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(this.getServletContext());
BR.