Tomcat7 + Maven plugin: Tomcat will not start with my war

Question

I'm using java 8 and tomcat 7 and maven 3.3.9 with the maven tomcat plugin:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.maven</groupId>
            <artifactId>tomcat7-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.2</version>
            <configuration>
                <port>8085</port>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

For a while everything worked just fine and tomcat7:run-war worked.

And now I'm getting this error for no apparent reason:

[INFO] --- tomcat7-maven-plugin:2.2:run-war (default-cli) @ tomcat-example ---
[INFO] Running war on http://localhost:8085/tomcat-example
[INFO] Using existing Tomcat server configuration at /Users/shikloshi/java_workspace/webapp-examples/tomcat-example/target/tomcat
[INFO] create webapp with contextPath: /tomcat-example
Jul 04, 2016 2:30:45 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8085"]
Jul 04, 2016 2:30:45 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService startInternal
INFO: Starting service Tomcat
Jul 04, 2016 2:30:45 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine startInternal
INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.47
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1.693s
[INFO] Finished at: Mon Jul 04 14:30:45 IDT 2016
[INFO] Final Memory: 17M/307M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.tomcat.maven:tomcat7-maven-plugin:2.2:run-war (default-cli) on project tomcat-example: Could not start Tomcat: Failed to start component [StandardServer[-1]]: Failed to start component [StandardService[Tomcat]]: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat]]: Failed to start component [Realm[MemoryRealm]]: Memory database file /Users/shikloshi/java_workspace/webapp-examples/tomcat-example/target/tomcat/conf/tomcat-users.xml cannot be read -> [Help 1]

This is the error:

Tomcat: Failed to start component [StandardServer[-1]]: Failed to start component [StandardService[Tomcat]]: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat]]: Failed to start component [Realm[MemoryRealm]]: Memory database file /Users/shikloshi/java_workspace/webapp-examples/tomcat-example/target/tomcat/conf/tomcat-users.xml cannot be read -> [Help 1]

Who is responsible for writing the tomcat configuration inside my target dir and why is it not written?

Answer 1

Execute mvn clean in order to clean target dir.

Then try again, the tomcat-maven-plugin would re-create the tomcat folder (including the file tomcat-users.xml).

Answer 2

Just delete the target folder from your application and run your app again. It works for me.