How can I cope with "IllegalStateException: BeanFactory not initialized or already closed"?

Question

With Grails 2.0.0 on Tomcat 7 I get the following right at startup:

2011-08-21 11:10:09,758 [main] ERROR StackTrace  - Full Stack Trace:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: BeanFactory not initialized or already closed - call 'refresh' before accessing beans via the ApplicationContext
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.getBeanFactory(AbstractRefreshableApplicationContext.java:172)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.containsBean(AbstractApplicationContext.java:1109)
        at org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.context.GrailsContextLoader$1.run(GrailsContextLoader.java:88)
        at org.codehaus.groovy.grails.lifecycle.ShutdownOperations.runOperations(ShutdownOperations.java:62)
        at org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.context.GrailsContextLoader.closeWebApplicationContext(GrailsContextLoader.java:136)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextDestroyed(ContextLoaderListener.java:142)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStop(StandardContext.java:4763)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext$4.run(StandardContext.java:5472)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.stopInternal(StandardContext.java:5481)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.stop(LifecycleBase.java:225)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:153)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:812)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:787)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:607)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:633)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:558)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:468)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1322)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:311)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:89)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.setStateInternal(LifecycleBase.java:379)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.setState(LifecycleBase.java:324)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:1041)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:774)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:145)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:1033)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.startInternal(StandardEngine.java:291)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:145)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.startInternal(StandardService.java:443)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:145)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.startInternal(StandardServer.java:727)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:145)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:620)
        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.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:303)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:431)
2011-08-21 11:10:09,761 [main] ERROR StackTrace  - Full Stack Trace:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: BeanFactory not initialized or already closed - call 'refresh' before accessing beans via the ApplicationContext
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

What could the cause of this be? How can it be resolved?

NOTE: If you know the solution you may also be able to answer "call 'refresh'" error resulting from Grails WAR hot-deploy as posted by a different user.

Answer 1

Turned out there was additional info provided in the logfile catalina.out. I had only checked the application specific stacktrace.log when I posted the question.

Thanks https://stackoverflow.com/users/203907/bozho for the hint on that!

The problem stemmed from the application being unable to connect to the database.

Thus it could be resolved by configuring access privileges on the database side.