"SEVERE: Error listenerStart" when trying to start grails App in Tomcat

Question

I have a problem with a grails app I'm working on and I can't figure it out. It's a grails 2.0 app that should run on a Debian stable with a Tomcat7. So I built the war file and deployed it to the Tomcat. As soon as I start it, I get the following log output in the Tomcat logfile (catalina.out):

SLF4J: Failed to load class "org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder".
SLF4J: Defaulting to no-operation (NOP) logger implementation
SLF4J: See http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#StaticLoggerBinder for further details.
28-Jan-2012 13:02:00 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
SEVERE: Error listenerStart
28-Jan-2012 13:02:00 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
SEVERE: Context [/Gibbons5] startup failed due to previous errors
28-Jan-2012 13:02:00 org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader clearReferencesJdbc
SEVERE: The web application [/Gibbons5] registered the JBDC driver [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] but failed to unregister it when the web application was stopped. To prevent a memory leak, the JDBC Driver has been forcibly unregistered.

I tried making the output a little more verbose by increasing the Tomcats loglevel to FINEST but that doesn't give me any more information. Also I changed the app's loglevel to debug, but that doesn't help either.

On my local Tomcat everything works fine with the same war and a Tomcat7.

BuildConfig.groovy

grails.project.class.dir = "target/classes"
grails.project.test.class.dir = "target/test-classes"
grails.project.test.reports.dir = "target/test-reports"
grails.project.dependency.resolution = {
    // inherit Grails' default dependencies
    inherits("global") {
    }
    log "warn" // log level of Ivy resolver, either 'error', 'warn', 'info', 'debug' or 'verbose'
    repositories {
        grailsPlugins()
        grailsHome()
        grailsCentral()
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        compile "org.jadira.usertype:usertype.jodatime:1.9"
        runtime 'mysql:mysql-connector-java:5.1.18'
    }
}

codenarc.reports = {
    XMLReport('xml') {
        outputFile = 'CodeNarcReport.xml'
        title = 'Gibbons5'
    }
    HTMLReport('html') {
    outputFile = 'CodeNarcReport.html'
        title = 'Gibbons5'
        }
}
codenarc.propertiesFile = 'codenarc.properties'

// cobertura exclusions
coverage {
    exclusions = [
        '**/BuildConfig*',
        '**/*SecurityConfig*'
    ]
}

application.properties

#Grails Metadata file
#Tue Jan 03 23:21:41 CET 2012
app.context=/
app.grails.version=2.0.0
app.name=Gibbons5
app.servlet.version=2.5
app.version=0.1
plugins.burning-image=0.5.0
plugins.code-coverage=1.2.5
plugins.codenarc=0.16.1
plugins.hibernate=2.0.0
plugins.joda-time=1.3.BUILD-SNAPSHOT
plugins.jquery=1.7.1
plugins.svn=1.0.1
plugins.syntax-highlighter=0.1.4
plugins.tomcat=2.0.0

BootStrap.groovy

import grails.util.GrailsUtil

class BootStrap {

    def baseDataGenerator

    def init = { servletContext ->
        switch (GrailsUtil.environment) {
            case 'development':
                log.debug("init() - booting as development")

                baseDataGenerator.generateData()

                break

            case 'production':
                log.info("init() - booting as production")

                baseDataGenerator.generateData()

                break

            case 'test':
                log.debug("init() - booting as test")

                baseDataGenerator.generateData()

                break

            default:
                log.warn("init() - uncovered environment " + GrailsUtil.environment)
        }
    }

    def destroy = {}
}

Answer 1

I was getting the same error, but I found the following article:

http://mythinkpond.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/tomcat-6-infamous-severe-error-listenerstart-message-how-to-debug-this-error/

In resume, you need to create a logging.properties file in your WEB-INF/classes (you can add it to exploded folder inside webapps and restart tomcat)

The content of logging.properties can be:

org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].level = INFO
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].handlers = java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler

After restart Tomcat you can see more detailed errors.