Issues

Caching

Tomcat compiles the jsp files into class files. These can be deleted by stopping Tomcat and removing the folder for your application in this folder:

work/Catalina/localhost/

Note: If you are using the Eclipse, tomcat plugin, Plugin - Tomcat, the folder will be in the root of your project e.g. ~/projects/myy-app/work/.

Failed creating java

• Can’t register Tomcat as Windows service on some computers, under Java6

• Tomcat Error - prunsrv.c Failed creating java (jvm.dll)

I updated Java to version 1.6, removed and re-installed the service, and get this error in the jakarta_service_20081231.log (Tomcat starts without any problem using the bin/startup.bat file):

[2009-03-27 11:33:10] [173  javajni.c] [error]
The specified module could not be found.
[2009-03-27 11:33:10] [924  prunsrv.c] [error]
Failed creating java E:\Software\Java\jdk1.6.0_11\jre\bin\server\jvm.dll

To solve the problem copy msvcr71.dll to the tomcat bin folder:

copy msvcr71.dll \tools\tomcat\bin\

There was a copy of msvcr71.dll on my workstation at some stage!

IllegalArgumentException

Trying to deploy an application using a context file, Deploy:

SEVERE: Error deploying configuration descriptor myfaces-template.xml
java.io.IOException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Context path is required

2007-01-15 10:54:03 StandardHost[localhost]: Error deploying application at context path null
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Context path is required

I was missing the path attribute in the Context tag:

<!-- extract of conf/Catalina/localhost/myfaces-template.xml -->
<Context
    cachingAllowed="true"
    cookies="true"
    privileged="false"
    docBase="/usr/local/bin/myfaces-template"
    path="/myfaces-template"
    ...

The Context Container guide for Tomcat 6 says The value of this field must not be set except when statically defining a Context in server.xml, as it will be infered from the filenames used for either the .xml context file or the docBase The Context Container, Tomcat 5 guide for Tomcat 5 does not have this paragraph.

JVM/JDK/JRE

If Tomcat starts without a problem using the bin/startup.bat file, but tries to use an old JVM when run as a service:

[2008-12-31 12:40:37] [986  prunsrv.c] [error]
Failed creating java c:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.5.0_14\jre\bin\server\jvm.dll

…remove and re-install the service.

NoClassDefFoundError

Had all kinds of nasty errors including:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/faces/FacesException

Looking in the actual web app folder:

C:\tools\Tomcat 5.5\webapps\sample-jsf-app\

I can see that the war file was not properly extracted e.g.

Only one jar file in:

C:\tools\Tomcat 5.5\webapps\sample-jsf-app\WEB-INF\lib\

To solve the problem have to fiddle around until the war file extracts correctly. I stopped Tomcat, deleted:

C:\tools\Tomcat 5.5\webapps\sample-jsf-app\

and:

C:\tools\Tomcat 5.5\webapps\sample-jsf-app.war

Restarted the server, redeployed and everything extracted correctly.

Vista

I don’t understand the permissions required to install and run a service under Windows Vista. For now, just download the zip file rather than the “Windows Service Installer”.

The server can be started and stopped by running the batch files:

c:
cd \tools\apache-tomcat-5.5.25\
bin\startup.bat
bin\shutdown.bat