Spring Boot 1.5.2 Startup: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()Ljava/lang/String;

Question

I've been getting the following error from version 1.5.2 of Spring Boot. In the trace its pulling tomcat version 8.5.11, and I am using javax.servlet version 3.1. Everywhere I look has said that version 3.1 should be the fix to the issue, but I still have it, even after deleting my repository under .m2 directory.

    java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122) [na:1.8.0_66]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:192) [na:1.8.0_66]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:939) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:872) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1419) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1409) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [na:1.8.0_66]
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142) [na:1.8.0_66]
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617) [na:1.8.0_66]
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) [na:1.8.0_66]
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [Pipeline[StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].TomcatEmbeddedContext[]]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5099) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [org.apache.catalina.authenticator.NonLoginAuthenticator[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.startInternal(StandardPipeline.java:170) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 8 common frames omitted
    Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()Ljava/lang/String;
    at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.startInternal(AuthenticatorBase.java:1137) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.11.jar:8.5.11]
    ... 10 common frames omitted

Here is the list of dependencies I am importing:

   <properties>
    <tomcat.version>8.5.11</tomcat.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.0</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
    <version>4.3.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
    <version>4.3.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
    <version>4.3.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
    <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
    <version>9.4-1206-jdbc42</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security.oauth</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-oauth2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.10.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-core</artifactId>
    <version>4.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.2.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
    <version>4.3.3.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.auth0</groupId>
    <artifactId>java-jwt</artifactId>
    <version>2.2.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
    <version>4.3.3.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/io.jsonwebtoken/jjwt -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.jsonwebtoken</groupId>
    <artifactId>jjwt</artifactId>
    <version>0.6.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>junit</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
    <version>4.12</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
    <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
    <version>4.5.1</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>

Answer 1

the method getVirtualServerName has been added in ServletContext in Servlet 3.1. Find the java doc's method getVirtualServerName

this problem can have at least 3 causes:

1. your servlet version is older that 3.1.

2. other jar has the servlet older version than 3.1.

3. your tomcat version is older than 8

to solve it, you can try the below way.

I. to check your pom.xml whether there are the below code.

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

if your pom.xml has the above code, it would still has that problem. you can do the second way.

II. to check your other jar has refer to the javax.servlet-api jar. for example, the org.apache.santuario has refer to the javax.servlet-api jar. the pom.xml:

<dependency>  
    <groupId>org.apache.santuario</groupId>  
    <artifactId>xmlsec</artifactId>  
    <version>1.4.3</version>   
</dependency> 

but when you look at the maven dependencies, it refer to the javax.servlet-api jar whose version is 2.3 older than 3.1.

so you should exclude the 2.3 version. pom.xml:

<!-- exclude servlet-api 2.3 jar-->  
<dependency>  
    <groupId>org.apache.santuario</groupId>  
    <artifactId>xmlsec</artifactId>  
    <version>1.4.3</version>  
    <exclusions>  
        <exclusion>  
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>  
            <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>  
        </exclusion>  
    </exclusions>  
</dependency>  

<!-- servlet-api 3.1 version has getVirtualServerName() -->  
<dependency>  
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>  
    <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>  
    <version>3.1.0</version>  
</dependency> 

III. spring boot run the default tomcat 7. so define your tomcat version 8 instead of tomcat 7. so add the code your pom.xml:

   <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
        <tomcat.version>8.5.5</tomcat.version>
    </properties>