ERROR: java.lang.AbstractMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext.getELContext()Ljavax/el/ELContext

Question

We are migrating to Spring-MVC but are having difficulty getting started in our existing environment: Tomcat 7, Java 7.

We keep running into an error related (I think) to the jstl-1.2.jar: java.lang.AbstractMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext.getELContext()Ljavax/el/ELContext

I've seen a few other posts about this, but none led us to a resolution.

I double checked the jar versions referenced in this compatibility chart, and they seem to check out: http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html

**** There are no JARs in the application's web-inf/lib folder.

I've sunk a whole day into this with absolutely nothing to show for. Please let me know what else I can provide.

<!--Web.xml-->
<?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"
  version="3.0"
>

  <display-name>Cars</display-name>

  <listener>
      <listener-class>com.genesco.Initializer</listener-class>
  </listener>

  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>Cars</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>Cars</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

More error info:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.AbstractMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext.getELContext()Ljavax/el/ELContext;
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.handleJspException(JspServletWrapper.java:460)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:355)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:329)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:265)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:728)
    org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:168)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:303)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1244)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.processDispatchResult(DispatcherServlet.java:1027)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:971)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:893)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:970)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:861)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:621)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:846)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:728)
    org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)

Answer 1

I think your web application has one or more old version of JSP, JSTL or EL libraries. Please check your application's WEB-INF/lib folder and try moving out the libraries.