Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]

Question

I am trying to build a SpringBoot application.

 import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
 import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
 import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;

    @SpringBootApplication
    public class App {

        @SuppressWarnings("unused")
        public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
            ApplicationContext ctx = SpringApplication.run(App.class, args);
        }
    }

But, when I try to run the app, it throws me the below error:

2017-03-27 13:55:58.281  INFO 8608 --- [           main] s.b.c.e.t.TomcatEmbeddedServletContainer : Tomcat initialized with port(s): 8080 (http)
2017-03-27 13:55:58.299  INFO 8608 --- [           main] o.apache.catalina.core.StandardService   : Starting service Tomcat
2017-03-27 13:55:58.302  INFO 8608 --- [           main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine  : Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/8.5.11
2017-03-27 13:55:58.554 ERROR 8608 --- [cat-startStop-1] org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase   : A child container failed during start

java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122) [na:1.8.0_73]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:192) [na:1.8.0_73]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:939) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:872) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1419) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1409) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [na:1.8.0_73]
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142) [na:1.8.0_73]
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617) [na:1.8.0_73]
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) [na:1.8.0_73]
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [Pipeline[StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5099) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [org.apache.catalina.authenticator.NonLoginAuthenticator[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.startInternal(StandardPipeline.java:170) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 8 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()Ljava/lang/String;
    at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.startInternal(AuthenticatorBase.java:1137) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 10 common frames omitted

my current pom.xml file is as follows:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>XXXX</groupId>
  <artifactId>XXXX</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>

<!-- JSON -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.googlecode.json-simple</groupId>
    <artifactId>json-simple</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.1</version>
</dependency>

 <dependency>
   <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
   <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
   <version>2.2</version>
 </dependency>

<dependency>
   <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
   <artifactId>jersey-client</artifactId>
   <version>1.19.3</version>
</dependency >

<dependency>
   <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
   <artifactId>jersey-json</artifactId>
   <version>1.19.3</version>
</dependency>

<!-- REST Services  -->
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>  

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

<!-- <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency> -->


  <!-- SLF4J Logging -->
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.4</version>
    <scope>compile</scope>
  </dependency>  

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.4</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
  </dependency>

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.4</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
  </dependency> 

  </dependencies>

  <build>
  <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
  <plugins>

    <!-- Set a compiler level -->
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>3.3</version>
      <configuration>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>
</project>

As mentioned in some SO posts, I tried removing (Jersey), adding (embedded tomcat) dependencies. But the error seems not to be having an effect on the changes.

I also tried and another simple project (app) from Spring Tutorials (to add two numbers), this has the following pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>SpringBootDemoProject</groupId>
  <artifactId>SpringBootDemoProject</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <dependencies>
  <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-starter -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>  
 <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-starter-web -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

  </dependencies>
  <build>  
    <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.3</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>1.8</source>
          <target>1.8</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

This works completely fine. Any pointers as to why this is the case?

Answer 1

For me, upgrading javax.servlet-api to 4.0.1 did the trick:

<dependency>
   <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
   <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
   <version>4.0.1</version>
</dependency>

Answer 2

My guess is you have to use the default ServletInitializer class that is provided within the Spring Boot Project template of Eclipse.

//SpringBootApplication.java
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringBootApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApplication.class, args);
    }
}

//ServletInitializer.java
public class ServletInitializer extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
        return application.sources(SpringBootApplication.class);
    }

}

If you are not using ServletInitializer class as specified in Spring Boot Starter Project template, try to extend SpringBootServletInitializer from your App class

public class App extends SpringBootServletInitializer

Please check a similar answer here

Answer 3

Looks like you have an incompatible version of Servlet API in ur classpath. This could have been as a dependencies to Jersey jars. Try pulling jersey starter from Spring boot starters.

org.springframework.boot : spring-boot-starter-jersey

This will bring the right version into your classpath.