apache tomcat: error in startup grails application

Question

I've deployed a Grails war into a server in which I've installed Apache Tomcat 7, but it does not start. Here is the stacktrace, given in catalina.out:

2014-07-05 12:07:55,875 [http-bio-8080-exec-53] ERROR context.ContextLoader  - Context initialization failed 
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invo
cation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAt() on null object
    at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:819)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:801)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAt() on null object
    ... 5 more
2014-07-05 12:07:55,883 [http-bio-8080-exec-53] ERROR context.GrailsContextLoader  - Error initializing the application: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in
ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAt() on
null object
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invo
cation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot       invoke method getAt() on null object
    at    com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.java:819)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:801)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAt() on null object
    ... 5 more
2014-07-05 12:07:55,886 [http-bio-8080-exec-53] ERROR context.GrailsContextLoader  -     Error initializing Grails: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in ServletC
 ontext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed;  nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAt() on null obj 
 ect
 org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invo
cation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot    invoke method getAt() on null object
     at      com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.j ava:819)
        at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(JmxMBeanServer.java:801)
     at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
  Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method getAt() on null object
     ... 5 more

Any suggestion about it?

EDIT: the tomcat version in which war does not work is 7.0.54. I've previously used, in another machine, an earlier version (7.0.26) and war starts.

Answer 1

I had the same problem trying to run my Grails 2.2.4 project on Ubuntu 16.04 beta and as Tomasz mentioned in the comment, it seems to be a combination of an old Grails version, Java 8 and newer versions of tomcat. Both tomcat 7 and tomcat 8 have the same issue. I solved the problem by upgrading my Grails project to Grails 2.3.11, which was as far as I could go without massive refactoring of the code. Switching to older tomcat or Java 7 was not an option for me.