Spring boot - java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.servlet.ServletContext and Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext

Question

I have a spring boot application (grails 3.1.8), but when I run the application in intellij i get the following error:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to introspect annotated methods on class org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.WebMvcConfigurationSupport
    at org.springframework.core.type.StandardAnnotationMetadata.getAnnotatedMethods(StandardAnnotationMetadata.java:163)
    at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.doProcessConfigurationClass(ConfigurationClassParser.java:292)
    at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.processConfigurationClass(ConfigurationClassParser.java:232)
    at org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassParser.processImports(ConfigurationClassParser.java:510)
    ... 26 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/ServletContext
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2701)
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods(Class.java:1975)
    at org.springframework.core.type.StandardAnnotationMetadata.getAnnotatedMethods(StandardAnnotationMetadata.java:152)
    ... 29 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.servlet.ServletContext
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:381)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:331)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    ... 33 common frames omitted

I tried adding javax-servlet-api dependency as suggested in Constructor threw exception; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/ServletContext

But then I started getting:

ERROR org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication - Application startup failed
org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start embedded container; nested exception is org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean.
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.onRefresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:133)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:532)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.refresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:118)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:766)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.createAndRefreshContext(SpringApplication.java:361)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:307)
    at grails.boot.GrailsApp.run(GrailsApp.groovy:55)
    at grails.boot.GrailsApp.run(GrailsApp.groovy:374)
    at grails.boot.GrailsApp.run(GrailsApp.groovy:363)
    at grails.boot.GrailsApp$run.call(Unknown Source)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteArray.defaultCall(CallSiteArray.java:48)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.AbstractCallSite.call(AbstractCallSite.java:113)
    at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.AbstractCallSite.call(AbstractCallSite.java:133)
    at closemytab.Application.main(Application.groovy:13)
    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:497)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:144)
Caused by: org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean.
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.getEmbeddedServletContainerFactory(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:185)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.createEmbeddedServletContainer(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:158)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.onRefresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:130)
    ... 18 common frames omitted

This post then suggests to remove the javax-servlet-api: Spring boot -- Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean

But then I face the original issue.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The issue was with the build.gradle

provided "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-tomcat"

Intellij wasn't happy with the provided

as soon as I switched to

compile "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-tomcat"

the application worked

Answer 2

Run with maven spring boot goal: spring-boot:run

Steps to setup maven configuration in IntelliJ:

Debug/Run Configuration | Click on + button visible at top left | Select Maven | Set command line to spring-boot:run

Answer 3

if you are using intelliJ idea, you need to enable ' Include dependencies with "Provider" scope in Run -> Edit Configurations -> Application 'your main class' (by default it's disabled) enter image description here