java.lang.AbstractMethodError: at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.DelegatingPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream(DelegatingPreparedStatement.java:328)

Question

I have a very pesky problem and i can't seem to find the answer anywhere.

My application throws this exception when trying to persist a @Lob:

java.lang.AbstractMethodError
 at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.DelegatingPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream(DelegatingPreparedStatement.java:328)
 at org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.DelegatingPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream(DelegatingPreparedStatement.java:328)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
 at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.proxy.AbstractStatementProxyHandler.continueInvocation(AbstractStatementProxyHandler.java:122)
 at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.proxy.AbstractProxyHandler.invoke(AbstractProxyHandler.java:81)
 at $Proxy32.setCharacterStream(Unknown Source)
 at org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.ClobTypeDescriptor$3$1.doBind(ClobTypeDescriptor.java:83)
 at org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder.bind(BasicBinder.java:92)
 at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeSet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:280)
 at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeSet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:275)
 at org.hibernate.type.AbstractSingleColumnStandardBasicType.nullSafeSet(AbstractSingleColumnStandardBasicType.java:57)
 at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.dehydrate(AbstractEntityPersister.java:2747)
 at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.update(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3152)
 at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.updateOrInsert(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3087)
 at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.update(AbstractEntityPersister.java:3416)
 at org.hibernate.action.internal.EntityUpdateAction.execute(EntityUpdateAction.java:140)
 at org.hibernate.engine.spi.ActionQueue.execute(ActionQueue.java:362)
 at org.hibernate.engine.spi.ActionQueue.executeActions(ActionQueue.java:354)
 at org.hibernate.engine.spi.ActionQueue.executeActions(ActionQueue.java:276)
 at org.hibernate.event.internal.AbstractFlushingEventListener.performExecutions(AbstractFlushingEventListener.java:326)
 at org.hibernate.event.internal.DefaultFlushEventListener.onFlush(DefaultFlushEventListener.java:52)
 at org.hibernate.internal.SessionImpl.flush(SessionImpl.java:1213)
 at org.hibernate.internal.SessionImpl.managedFlush(SessionImpl.java:402)
 at org.hibernate.engine.transaction.internal.jdbc.JdbcTransaction.beforeTransactionCommit(JdbcTransaction.java:101)
 ...(more)

I am running on Tomcat 6.0.36(also tried tomcat 7).

MySQL 4.1.22 database.

Code is compiled with jdk 7 and built with gradle.

My dependencies are:

+--- javax.mail:mail:1.4 -> 1.4.1
|    \--- javax.activation:activation:1.1
+--- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.5.6 -> 1.6.1
+--- log4j:log4j:1.2.13 -> 1.2.16
+--- org.apache.wicket:wicket:1.4.15
|    \--- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.5.8 -> 1.6.1
+--- org.apache.wicket:wicket-extensions:1.4.15
|    +--- org.apache.wicket:wicket:1.4.15 (*)
|    \--- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.5.8 -> 1.6.1
+--- mysql:mysql-connector-java:5.1.26
+--- com.microsoft.sqlserver:sqljdbc4:4.0
+--- com.itextpdf:itextpdf:5.4.2
+--- org.hibernate.javax.persistence:hibernate-jpa-2.0-api:1.0.0.Final -> 1.0.1.Final
+--- org.hibernate:hibernate-core:4.1.9.Final
|    +--- antlr:antlr:2.7.7
|    +--- org.jboss.logging:jboss-logging:3.1.0.GA
|    +--- org.javassist:javassist:3.17.1-GA
|    +--- org.jboss.spec.javax.transaction:jboss-transaction-api_1.1_spec:1.0.0.Final
|    +--- dom4j:dom4j:1.6.1
|    |    \--- xml-apis:xml-apis:1.0.b2
|    +--- org.hibernate.javax.persistence:hibernate-jpa-2.0-api:1.0.1.Final
|    \--- org.hibernate.common:hibernate-commons-annotations:4.0.1.Final
|         \--- org.jboss.logging:jboss-logging:3.1.0.CR2 -> 3.1.0.GA
+--- org.hibernate:hibernate-entitymanager:4.1.9.Final
|    +--- org.jboss.logging:jboss-logging:3.1.0.GA
|    +--- org.javassist:javassist:3.17.1-GA
|    +--- org.jboss.spec.javax.transaction:jboss-transaction-api_1.1_spec:1.0.0.Final
|    +--- dom4j:dom4j:1.6.1 (*)
|    +--- org.hibernate.javax.persistence:hibernate-jpa-2.0-api:1.0.1.Final
|    +--- org.hibernate:hibernate-core:4.1.9.Final (*)
|    \--- org.hibernate.common:hibernate-commons-annotations:4.0.1.Final (*)
+--- foo.bar.data-services:foor-bar-data:2.0.0.275
|    +--- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.6.1
|    +--- org.hibernate:hibernate-core:4.1.6.Final -> 4.1.9.Final (*)
|    +--- org.hibernate.javax.persistence:hibernate-jpa-2.0-api::1.0.1.Final -> 1.0.1.Final
|    +--- org.slf4j:slf4j-log4j12:1.6.1
|    |    +--- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.6.1
|    |    \--- log4j:log4j:1.2.16
|    +--- log4j:log4j:1.2.16
|    \--- commons-configuration:commons-configuration:1.9
|         +--- commons-lang:commons-lang:2.6
|         \--- commons-logging:commons-logging:1.1.1
+--- javax.transaction:jta:1.1
+--- dom4j:dom4j:1.6.1 (*)
+--- antlr:antlr:2.7.6 -> 2.7.7
+--- commons-collections:commons-collections:3.2.1
+--- commons-configuration:commons-configuration:1.9 (*)
+--- commons-dbcp:commons-dbcp:1.4
|    \--- commons-pool:commons-pool:1.5.4 -> 1.5.7
+--- commons-pool:commons-pool:1.5.7
+--- commons-logging:commons-logging:1.1.1
+--- commons-dbutils:commons-dbutils:1.4
+--- commons-lang:commons-lang:2.6
+--- commons-io:commons-io:2.4
+--- org.apache.commons:commons-email:1.2
|    +--- javax.mail:mail:1.4.1 (*)
|    \--- javax.activation:activation:1.1
+--- javax.servlet:servlet-api:2.5
+--- javax.servlet.jsp:jsp-api:2.1
\--- org.slf4j:slf4j-log4j12:1.5.6 -> 1.6.1 (*)

So looking at the exception, it seems like the application is trying to call the tomcat-dbcp.jar in the CATALINA_BASE/lib folder. But i would expect it to call my commons-dbcp.jar in my classpath.

But frankly i'm at a loss, i tried a lot of things, but can't seem to get this working... Thanks in advance for your help. Tell me if you need more information.

EDIT 1:

server.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">

    <Listener SSLEngine="on" className="org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener"/>
    <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JasperListener"/>
    <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JreMemoryLeakPreventionListener"/>
    <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.ServerLifecycleListener"/>
    <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.GlobalResourcesLifecycleListener"/>

    <GlobalNamingResources>
        <Resource auth="Container" description="User database that can be updated and saved" factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory" name="UserDatabase" pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"/>
        <Resource auth="Container" driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" logAbandoned="true" maxActive="100" maxIdle="10" maxWait="10000" name="jdbc/foo" removeAbandoned="true" removeAbandonedTimeout="300" type="javax.sql.DataSource" url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/foo?autoReconnect=true&amp;dumpQueriesOnException=true" username="root" validationQuery="select 1"/>     
        <Resource auth="Container" driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" logAbandoned="true" maxActive="20" maxIdle="5" maxWait="10000" name="jdbc/bar" removeAbandoned="true" removeAbandonedTimeout="300" type="javax.sql.DataSource" url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/bar?autoReconnect=true&amp;dumpQueriesOnException=true" username="root" validationQuery="select 1"/>
    </GlobalNamingResources>

    <Service name="Catalina">
        <Connector connectionTimeout="20000" port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" redirectPort="8443"/>
        <Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443"/>

        <Engine defaultHost="localhost" name="Catalina">
            <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm" resourceName="UserDatabase"/>
            <Host appBase="webapps" autoDeploy="true" name="localhost" unpackWARs="true" xmlNamespaceAware="false" xmlValidation="false">
            <Context docBase="foo" path="/foo" reloadable="true" source="org.eclipse.jst.j2ee.server:foo"/></Host>
        </Engine>
    </Service>
</Server>

Answer 1

The solution was to use tomcat 7. This has a version of tomcat-dbcp.jar that actually has the DelegatingPreparedStatement.setCharacterStream that the application needed.

My problem was that when i tried it on my tomcat 7 server, i still got the same error at the same place in my application. This was caused by an old version of mysql-connector-java(5.0.5 if i remember correctly) that was lingering in my tomcat lib folder due to earlier attempts to make this work. This older version apparently had precedence over my own mysql-connector-java(newest version) that i have as a dependency. Because this gave me the same exception, it seemed that it did not change anything in my situation, while it actually did.

When i figured this out, the rest was easy, my only problem was that i couldn't upgrade very easily to tomcat 7, since other applications are currently running on our tomcat 6 version in the production environment. So the solution was to copy the tomcat-dbcp.jar from a tomcat 7 dist to our tomcat 6 server and replacing the one that was already there.

Hope this will help others as well, thanks to everyone for all the help in any case!