Tomcat startup - Error: Could not find or load main class

Question

When I attempt to startup Tomcat (7.0.82) on RHEL6/Java7, the logs will display this:

Error: Could not find or load main class

Notice, no specific class specified at the end of the log entry. Most hits on google seem to indicate a specific class at the end of the log entry.

In my case, I have these two servers configured identically (AFAIK). However, one server doesn't want to start. The server was installed using downloadeded binaries, custom init script, etc; using an Ansible script that worked on 3 servers in total (all same OS, Java) thus far.

Issued command: service tomcat start

Server A - Works

Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat/current
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat/current
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/current/temp
Using JRE_HOME:        /usr
Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/current/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/current/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Tomcat started.

Server B - Doesn't (Even though indicates "started")

Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat/current
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat/current
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/current/temp
Using JRE_HOME:        /usr
Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/current/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/current/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Tomcat started.

Update #1

Output of catalina.out

[me@server tomcat]$ cat /var/log/tomcat/catalina.out
Error: Could not find or load main class

Update #2

Output of version.sh and configtest.sh

version.sh

[me@server bin]$ ./version.sh
Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/temp
Using JRE_HOME:        /usr
Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Server version: Apache Tomcat/7.0.82
Server built:   Sep 29 2017 12:23:15 UTC
Server number:  7.0.82.0
OS Name:        Linux
OS Version:     2.6.32-696.13.2.el6.x86_64
Architecture:   amd64
JVM Version:    1.7.0_45-b18
JVM Vendor:     Oracle Corporation

configtest.sh

[me@server bin]$ ./configtest.sh
Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/temp
Using JRE_HOME:        /usr
Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Server version:        Apache Tomcat/7.0.82
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Server built:          Sep 29 2017 12:23:15 UTC
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Server number:         7.0.82.0
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: OS Name:               Linux
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: OS Version:            2.6.32-696.13.2.el6.x86_64
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Architecture:          amd64
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Java Home:             /usr/java/jre1.7.0_45
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: JVM Version:           1.7.0_45-b18
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: JVM Vendor:            Oracle Corporation
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: CATALINA_BASE:         /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: CATALINA_HOME:         /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Command line argument: -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Command line argument: -Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Command line argument: -Djava.endorsed.dirs=/opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/endorsed
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Command line argument: -Dcatalina.base=/opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Command line argument: -Dcatalina.home=/opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener log
INFO: Command line argument: -Djava.io.tmpdir=/opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-7.0.82/temp
Nov 30, 2017 10:13:59 AM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener lifecycleEvent
INFO: The APR based Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path: /usr/java/packages/lib/amd64:/usr/lib64:/lib64:/lib:/usr/lib
Nov 30, 2017 10:14:00 AM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8080"]
Nov 30, 2017 10:14:00 AM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"]
Nov 30, 2017 10:14:00 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 1881 ms

Could you add more detailed log? Also you could try the following: bash -x /etc/init.d/tomcat start — ALex_hha, Nov 29 '17 at 22:02
That's all it gives. I have tail running and at every restart, that's all it gives out. — TechFanDan, Nov 30 '17 at 00:02
I ran your command, gave me the same output in my logs/terminal. FYI. — TechFanDan, Nov 30 '17 at 13:00
Are you sure? Because it should contain much more output. What in the /etc/init.d/tomcat? One more thing - did you check JAVA_OPTS? I had similar issue with Jenkins, when there was incorrect JAVA_OPTS set in the ```/etc/sysconfig/tomcat8``` — ALex_hha, Nov 30 '17 at 16:35
Reformatted my entire setenv.sh file, now getting more output! — TechFanDan, Nov 30 '17 at 17:06

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 30 '17 at 19:17

4

setenv.sh had encoding issues and improper EOL. Once those were fixed, things were up and running like expected.

answered Nov 30 '17 at 19:17

TechFanDan

297
1
6
20

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 09 '18 at 14:12

This issue is directly linked to your setenv.sh and, as pointed above, is due to improper encoding and formatting issues. In my case there were two errors:

Extra spaces in VMargs. Example:

Dcatalina.base= /some/location or Dcatalina.base =/some/location or Dcatalina.base = /some/location

are wrong because of spaces around the '='.

The second issue was related to line endings. Make sure if you using unix/linux, your setenv.sh must be saved with unix styled line endings. (Can be done in Notepad++ or gedit while saving). Whereas if you are using Windows, your setenv.bat must have windows styled line endings.

One way to check this is to try to run setenv.sh by doing ./setenv.sh. If it does not show any output, your formatting is fine.

Tomcat startup - Error: Could not find or load main class

2 Answers2