Server instance is not configured. Class Not Found: VersionLoggerListener

Question

I'm trying to set up tomcat 7.0.57 to run a web application, in Eclipse Luna. I've added the webapp to the server, and tried to publish the serve but I get this error:

Dec 05, 2014 10:07:13 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester startElement
SEVERE: Begin event threw exception
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:372)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:360)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.ObjectCreateRule.begin(ObjectCreateRule.java:144)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.startElement(Digester.java:1276)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.startElement(AbstractSAXParser.java:509)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractXMLDocumentParser.emptyElement(AbstractXMLDocumentParser.java:182)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1343)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:2786)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:649)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1537)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:617)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:665)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.load(Bootstrap.java:281)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:455)

Dec 05, 2014 10:07:13 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
WARNING: Catalina.start using conf/server.xml: Error at (21, 76) : org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener
Dec 05, 2014 10:07:13 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester startElement
SEVERE: Begin event threw exception
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:372)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:360)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.ObjectCreateRule.begin(ObjectCreateRule.java:144)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.startElement(Digester.java:1276)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.startElement(AbstractSAXParser.java:509)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractXMLDocumentParser.emptyElement(AbstractXMLDocumentParser.java:182)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1343)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:2786)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:649)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1537)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:617)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:679)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:322)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:456)

Dec 05, 2014 10:07:13 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
WARNING: Catalina.start using conf/server.xml: Error at (21, 76) : org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener
Dec 05, 2014 10:07:13 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
SEVERE: Cannot start server. Server instance is not configured.

Clearly something is wrong with the VersionLoggerListener because it can't find it. All my server.xml (accessed via my workspace folder) contains on line 21 is this:

<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener"/>

Which seems pretty innocent. Googling doesn't seem to tell me this is missing in other peoples tomcat packages.

Checking my 'installation' of tomcat, it looks like this line is missing from the equivalent server.xml

Should they be the same? Which should I point to Workspace version, or installation version?

I don't know what's up though, here it implied that their equivalent ThreadLocalLeakPreventionListener was recently added and it's some kind of version conflict, which I don't think is the case here (?) as both are version 7 of tomcat.

Here it looks like a jar is missing, but I don't know how that would happen as I'm sure VersionLoggerListener is a core class to catalina and should be there as part of the installation.

So what is it?

Answer 1

I faced the same issue while switching Tomcat7 to Tomcat6.

Because the conf folder under CATALINA_BASE folder, you were using was from different tomcat version from current version.

In Tomcat 7, you will find VersionLoggerListener in server.xml

To start tomcat, just change the folder pointing to new location of CATALINA_BASE with conf folder OR DELETE the conf folder and replace it with your current tomcat conf.

For Eclipse, server Folder:.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0\conf

Answer 2

I had two different version of Tomcat going. I deleted the server (using the server view) and then re-added it pointing to the installation.