Deployment of war is failing in tomcat because of Cannot initialize context because there is already a root application context present

Question

I have been banging my head on this since few days. And I really don't understand from where this error is coming from. I already followed few threads regarding this on SO, this and this one

26-Dec-2020 12:48:18.633 SEVERE [main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class [org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener]
        java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot initialize context because there is already a root application context present - check whether you have multiple ContextLoader* definitions in your web.xml!
                at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:263)
                at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:103)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4714)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5177)
                at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:183)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:717)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:690)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:706)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:978)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployWar.run(HostConfig.java:1848)
                at java.base/java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:515)
                at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)

I have written a set of API and I am trying to deploy it over tomcat server. And during deployment my application is starting but getting aborted because of some other context is already there.

Why my application is not starting successfully ? I have only one war file present in my webapps folder and I have removed the rest.

I also don't understand which web.xml file is it talking about.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 29 '20 at 14:50

Finally I got the culprit. I don't know why I feel like spring session documentation needs lot of work. I could be wrong.

Anyway, I am using initializer which extends AbstractHttpSessionApplicationInitializer, as mentioned in the documentation.

public class SessionConfigInitializer extends AbstractHttpSessionApplicationInitializer {

    public SessionConfigInitializer() {
        super(SessionConfig.class);
    }
}

When I looked in AbstractHttpSessionApplicationInitializer it was doing this servletContext.addListener(new ContextLoaderListener(rootAppContext)); on startup.

Posting this in case if someone else fall into this situation might help them.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 26 '20 at 17:17

0

You have to see where you had installed your tomcat and see webapp folder, there are all web applications in this folder. for example in my case: C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache Tomcat 8.0.27\webapps

or see C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache Tomcat 8.0.27\conf\Catalina\localhost if any other webapplication exists outside of tomcat server folder.

answered Dec 26 '20 at 17:17

გენო მუმლაძე

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I am using ubuntu server. And my tomcat is in /opt/tomcat. There is no other tomcat other than this. – Lokesh Pandey Dec 27 '20 at 07:33
so, if you use tomcat see 'webapp' folder in tomcat. there are applications how many folders are in 'webapp' folder. – გენო მუმლაძე Dec 27 '20 at 07:40
Only one folder and that is my application along with war file – Lokesh Pandey Dec 27 '20 at 07:41
ok now check folder: 'Apache Tomcat 8.0.27\conf\Catalina\localhost'. does any xml exist there? – გენო მუმლაძე Dec 27 '20 at 08:04
No there is no xml file. But in conf dir there is web.xml – Lokesh Pandey Dec 27 '20 at 08:13
To sum up, if your tomcat/webapp folder contains only your applications and no xml file is in tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost then you have built your spring app incorrectly. – გენო მუმლაძე Dec 27 '20 at 09:18
springboot doesn't need web.xml to run – Lokesh Pandey Dec 27 '20 at 09:36
"Only one folder and that is my application along with war file" I am confused with this answer. Does this mean you have your application folder and war file both? You should have only one war file in webapp folder. Nothing else. Is that the case? Can you post screenshot of webapp folder if possible? Also did you already try this solution? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33633098/java-lang-illegalstateexception-cannot-initialize-context-because-there-is-alre – Prakash Boda Dec 29 '20 at 13:21
@PrakashBoda No initally webapps is empty when I deploy my war file in webapps it creates one folder. – Lokesh Pandey Dec 29 '20 at 13:33
@PrakashBoda I followed the link you share I am not using any of those – Lokesh Pandey Dec 29 '20 at 13:42

Deployment of war is failing in tomcat because of Cannot initialize context because there is already a root application context present

2 Answers2