Tomcat 7 hangs on Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext

Question

I am trying to deploy a Spring web application to Tomcat 7.0.24 but it hangs upon startup with the last lines showing as

INFO: Deploying web application archive /usr/local/apps/tomcat-7.0.42/webapps/server-webapp.war
Apr 4, 2014 1:38:28 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Spring WebApplicationInitializers detected on classpath: [com.verical.marketplace.init.MarketplaceWebAppInitializer@6a05fdf]
Apr 4, 2014 1:38:30 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext

I recently upgraded to Spring 4.0.2 and am using a customer WebApplicationInitializer via annotations. Before the upgrade I was using Spring 3 with pure XML config and it worked just fine. My web.xml file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xsi:schemaLocation="
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-common_3_0.xsd"
     version="3.0">

<!-- Define the mime mappings -->
<mime-mapping>
    <extension>xsd</extension>
    <mime-type>text/xml</mime-type>
</mime-mapping>

<!-- Define the welcome file list -->
<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

<!-- Define the default session timeout value -->
<session-config>
    <session-timeout>240</session-timeout>
    <cookie-config>
        <http-only>true</http-only>
        <secure>true</secure>
    </cookie-config>
</session-config>

Here is my web application initializer:

public class MarketplaceWebAppInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer
{
  @Override
  public void onStartup(ServletContext container)
  {
    // Instantiate a new web application context
    XmlWebApplicationContext rootContext = new MarketplaceXmlWebApplicationContext(container);

    // Add the various listeners
    container.addListener(new ContextLoaderListener(rootContext));
    container.addListener(new RequestContextListener());

    // Set the locations of the configuration files
    rootContext.setConfigLocations(
            new String[]
                    {
                            "applicationContext.xml",
                            "config/api-beans.xml",
                            "config/hibernate-beans.xml",
                            "config/security-beans.xml",
                            "config/service-beans.xml",
                            "config/settings-beans.xml",
                            "config/utility-beans.xml",
                            "config/mvc/web-beans.xml",
                            "config/jmx-beans.xml",
                            "config/ws/ws-beans.xml"
                    }
    );

    // Add the dispatcher servlet
    ServletRegistration.Dynamic mvc =
            container.addServlet("mvc", new DispatcherServlet(rootContext));
    mvc.setLoadOnStartup(1);
    mvc.setInitParameter("dispatchOptionsRequest", "true");
    mvc.addMapping("/api/*");
    mvc.addMapping("/html/*");

    // Add the web services servlet
    ServletRegistration.Dynamic ws =
            container.addServlet("ws", new MessageDispatcherServlet(rootContext));
    ws.setLoadOnStartup(2);
    ws.setInitParameter("transformWsdlLocations", "true");
    ws.addMapping("/service/*");

    // Add the spring security filter
    FilterRegistration.Dynamic springSecurityFilter =
            container.addFilter("springSecurityFilterChain",
                    new DelegatingFilterProxy("springSecurityFilterChain"));
    springSecurityFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/j_spring_security_check");
    springSecurityFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/j_spring_security_logout");
    springSecurityFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/api/*");
    springSecurityFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/html/*");

    // Add the static content filter
    FilterRegistration.Dynamic staticContentFilter =
            container.addFilter("staticContentFilter", new StaticContentFilter());
    staticContentFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/static/*");
    staticContentFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/generated/*");

    // Add the logger filter
    FilterRegistration.Dynamic loggerFilter =
            container.addFilter("loggerFilter", new LoggerFilter());
    loggerFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/api/*");
    loggerFilter.addMappingForUrlPatterns(null, true, "/html/*");
  }
}

Is there anything obvious that I am missing? I've checked all the other questions/answers on this topic and didn't find a solution.

Answer 1

Setting an answer for this so others know what helped me in this particular situation. Turning on Spring logging allowed me to see that a database connection was in a hung state. Resolving the database issue allowed my application to finish deployment.