java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager

Question

I'm working on a webapp in Spring using Spring Tool Suite. If I build and deploy the application there using the IDE onto the provided Pivotal tc Server, it works just fine. However, if I do a manual "mvn clean package" build and attempt to deploy it to a standalone Tomcat server (using newest Tomcat 7), it throws the following exception:

2017-08-23 15:24:13 WARN  AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext:551 - Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Bean instantiation via factory method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to instantiate [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter]: Factory method 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'mvcValidator' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager
2017-08-23 15:24:13 ERROR DispatcherServlet:502 - Context initialization failed
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Bean instantiation via factory method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to instantiate [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter]: Factory method 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'mvcValidator' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager

Upon further inspection, it does complain few lines higher above about not loading jars:

sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deploying web application archive D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.war
sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-INF\lib\el-api-2.2.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/el/Expression.class
sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-INF\lib\javax.servlet-api-3.1.0.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-INF\lib\tomcat-el-api-8.0.21.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/el/Expression.class
2017-08-23 15:24:13 INFO  ContextLoader:304 - Root WebApplicationContext: initialization started

My 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>com.exmaple.mvc</groupId>
  <artifactId>TestApp</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
        <version>1.6.6</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
       <groupId>log4j</groupId>
       <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
       <version>1.2.17</version>
       <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <artifactId>jms</artifactId>
            <groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
        </exclusion>
        <exclusion>
            <artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
            <groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
        </exclusion>
        <exclusion>
            <artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
            <groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
        <dependency>
        <groupId>jstl</groupId>
        <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
        <version>1.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>junit</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
        <version>4.12</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.mockito/mockito-all -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
        <artifactId>mockito-all</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.5</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/commons-lang/commons-lang -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
        <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
        <version>2.3</version>
    </dependency>
    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.hibernate/hibernate-validator -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
        <version>6.0.1.Final</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.8</source>
                <target>1.8</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

What's the reason for this behavior and how can I solve this?

EDIT More information:

Adding <scope>provided</scope> to javax.servlet-api seems to fix the warning about javax.servlet-api not being loaded at the start. Problem with el-api still remains.

I've checked the tomcat/lib directory and it already contains el-api.jar in it, which is likely why it tells me it's not going to load the one I list in pom.xml. The thing is, adding <scope>provided</scope> doesn't fix it either. Whatever I do, it still complains gives me the same java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager error.

SOLUTION

In addition to the part in the edit above regarding javax.servlet-api the problem with el-api was that I was running a Tomcat 7 with provided el-api jar in version 2.2. The missing class was introduced in el-api 3.0. Running the same webapp in Tomcat 8 (with el-api 3.0 jar) works properly.

Answer 1

You miss the javax.el-api as dependency. Add:

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.el</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.el-api</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>

to your pom.xml

Answer 2

Hibernate Validator 6.x -> Bean Validation 2.0 (JSR 380) -> EL3.0

Hibernate Validator 5.x -> Bean Validation 1.1 (JSR 349) -> EL2.2

Bean Validation 1.0 (JSR 303) -> (I'm not sure)

so,it also influence others version (tomcat,jdk,jsp,servlet)

such as tomcat7, if you want to use Hibernate Validator, should use Hibernate Validator 5.x, el 2.2 (and servlet 3.0, jsp 2.2 and jdk 6+)

Answer 3

Downgrade hibernate-validator to version 5 and it will work fine with Tomcat 7. In my case I add next dependency to my pom:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
    <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
    <version>5.4.3.Final</version>
</dependency>

Or you can add newer el-api.jat to tomcat lib folder.

Answer 4

Please refer to Hibernate validation "Unable to initialize javax.el.ExpressionFactory" error

use

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
   <artifactId>javax.el</artifactId>
   <version>3.0.1-b08</version>
</dependency>