NetBeans: Cannot Start Tomcat ("The system cannot find the file specified")

Question

I just installed NetBeans 8.2 along with Tomcat 8.0.27 on a Windows server VDI instance. I am an experienced NetBeans/Tomcat user (mostly on Mac OS recently) so this is nothing new for me.

After the NetBeans and Tomcat installation I try to start Tomcat from NetBeans' Services window like I always have. Unfortunately Tomcat fails to start, and this is the only output in the NetBeans Output window in the Apache Tomcat 8.0.27 tab:

Using CATALINA_BASE:   "D:\dev\apache-tomcat-8.0.27.0_base"
Using CATALINA_HOME:   "D:\dev\Apache Tomcat 8.0.27"
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: "D:\dev\apache-tomcat-8.0.27.0_base\temp"
Using JRE_HOME:        "D:\dev\jdk18"
Using CLASSPATH:       "D:\dev\Apache Tomcat 8.0.27\bin\bootstrap.jar;D: \dev\Apache Tomcat 8.0.27\bin\tomcat-juli.jar"
The system cannot find the file specified.

I've verified that all the locations in the above message actually do exist so I don't know what file it is that cannot be found. If it was some sort of permission issue I would expect it to say as much (right?).

You can see here that I have some non-standard NetBeans and Tomcat installation locations, but I have also tried with the standard installation locations and I have the same result (these locations avoid the company's intrusive virus scanner).

I can start Tomcat from the command line using startup.bat or catalina.bat so I know the Tomcat installation is OK. However, this isn't nearly as convenient as doing it from NetBeans.

What can I do to figure out why NetBeans can't start Tomcat? I've looked in a few log files but there's nothing about Tomcat. Maybe I'm not seeing all the NetBeans log files.

I don't know where else to look or what else to try. I've used NetBeans and Tomcat for years and have never had this problem.

Thank you!!

Answer 1

I've been having this issue in the past few days and that was driving me crazy. I just figured it out how to solve this (and is pretty simple). Go to Tools -> Options -> General -> Proxy Settings: No Proxy.