GAE 500 server error

Question

I'm developing app on GAE, I test the website locally fine however, every time I tried to deploy it to the GAE it reports with Error: Server Error

The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds. 

I searched a lot in google, seems no answer could solve my question. When I look for the log in the GAE app, following is the major problem I found so far. Initially, I thought it's due to JDK8 but when I set JDK8 I can't even run the app locally!

    Uncaught exception from servlet
java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/apache/jsp/index_jsp : Unsupported major.minor version 52.0
    at com.google.appengine.runtime.Request.process-aea5c804a9f29902(Request.java)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:795)
    at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:449)
    at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor5.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:360)
    at org.mortbay.util.Loader.loadClass(Loader.java:91)
    at org.mortbay.util.Loader.loadClass(Loader.java:71)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Holder.doStart(Holder.java:73)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.doStart(ServletHolder.java:242)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:50)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.initialize(ServletHandler.java:685)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Context.startContext(Context.java:140)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.startContext(WebAppContext.java:1250)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.doStart(ContextHandler.java:517)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:467)
    at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:50)
    at com.google.tracing.TraceContext$TraceContextRunnable.runInContext(TraceContext.java:437)
    at com.google.tracing.TraceContext$TraceContextRunnable$1.run(TraceContext.java:444)
    at com.google.tracing.CurrentContext.runInContext(CurrentContext.java:188)
    at com.google.tracing.TraceContext$AbstractTraceContextCallback.runInInheritedContextNoUnref(TraceContext.java:308)
    at com.google.tracing.TraceContext$AbstractTraceContextCallback.runInInheritedContext(TraceContext.java:300)
    at com.google.tracing.TraceContext$TraceContextRunnable.run(TraceContext.java:441)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:724)

Answer 1

This is the telltale: Unsupported major.minor version 52.0. This happens when you compile on higher version JDK (52 = java8) and then execute it on lower JRE version (GAE uses java7).

GAE does not yet support Java8, so you should compile under Java7.

Answer 2

I had the same problem on Windows when Java 8 was installed.

I tried modifying the project/workspace settings but it didn't help me.

So, I created the following batch file as a workaround for GAE projects:

eclipse_gae.bat:

SET JAVA_HOME="C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_55"
SET PATH="%JAVA_HOME%\bin"
START eclipse.exe

Answer 3

there is no need to fully remove Java 8 from MacOS. Just reconfigure Eclipse as shown here to force it to compile JSPs as Java 7: http://java.wildstartech.com/Java-Platform-Standard-Edition/mac-os-x-java-development/how-to-configure-eclipse-to-run-with-java-7-when-java-8-is-installed