Tomcat 6 not loading jars from WEB-INF/lib

Question

I'm trying to track down a configuration issue in my tomcat environment. Our production servers are running a tomcat installation and reading the war from a shared NFS mount.

However, when I try the same war with a stand-alone box (with their configuration), I get the error posted below.

Whats interesting, is that if I unzip all the jars in WEB-INF/lib into WEB-INF/classes, this error goes away.

So, it seems like something is preventing the app from loading the WEB-INF/lib path, but I can't for the life of me find any tomcat settings that would cause this, because it is detecting the apps and configuration, just not the included jars.

Any ideas?

SEVERE: Error configuring application listener of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1387) at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1233) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3786) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4342) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:791) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:771) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:525) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:627) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:553) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:488) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1149) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:311) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:117) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:719) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1045) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:443) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:516) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:578) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:288) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:413) Dec 20, 2011 4:20:38 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext listenerStart SEVERE: Error configuring application listener of class org.springframework.security.web.session.HttpSessionEventPublisher java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.security.web.session.HttpSessionEventPublisher at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1387) at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1233) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3786) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4342) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:791) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:771) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:525) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:627) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:553) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:488) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1149) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:311) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:117) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:719) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1045) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:443) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:516) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:578) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:288) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:413)

Answer 1

So, I still don't have a reason for why this is happening, but I was finally able to get it working. Normally, we use 'unzip' to unpack the war into the deploy directory. I switched it to use 'jar' and everything magically works.

I have no idea why this would be. I tried every other permutation (checking our deployment folder, symlinks, permissions, ownerships, etc), and this was the only thing that made a difference, even diffing the two unpacked folders showed they were the same, with the same permissions, but one worked and one didn't

Also of note: the production deploys have been using 'unzip' for years. I really can't figure this one out, but I'm glad I can at least work on something else.