No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected

Question

My Eclipse project is suddenly no longer deploying properly. I can't trace it to any particular change I've made to the environment.

I have tested with multiple source-controlled projects and they are all behaving the same way:

May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init
INFO: The APR based Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in     production environments was not found on the java.library.path: C:\Program Files   (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_11\bin;C:\Windows\Sun\Java\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA     Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows \System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;.
May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.SetPropertiesRule begin
WARNING: [SetPropertiesRule]{Server/Service/Engine/Host/Context} Setting property 'source' to 'org.eclipse.jst.jee.server:fismacm' did not find a matching property.
May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8080"]
May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"]
May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 296 ms
May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService startInternal
INFO: Starting service Catalina
May 01, 2013 12:00:45 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine startInternal
INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.35
May 01, 2013 12:00:46 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/sql_rt is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/core_rt is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/functions is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://jakarta.apache.org/taglibs/standard/permittedTaglibs is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/xml is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://jakarta.apache.org/taglibs/standard/scriptfree is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt_rt is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/xml is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/xml_rt is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://java.sun.com/jstl/sql is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://www.springframework.org/tags/form is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://www.springframework.org/tags is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.TaglibUriRule body
INFO: TLD skipped. URI: http://www.springframework.org/security/tags is already defined
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Set web app root system property: 'webapp.root' =     [X:\workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0\wtpwebapps\fismacm\]
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Initializing log4j from [X:\workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0\wtpwebapps\fismacm\WEB-    INF\log4j.properties]
May 01, 2013 12:00:48 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext
SLF4J: Failed to load class "org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder".
SLF4J: Defaulting to no-operation (NOP) logger implementation
SLF4J: See http://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#StaticLoggerBinder for further details.
May 01, 2013 12:00:49 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start
INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8080"]
May 01, 2013 12:00:49 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start
INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"]
May 01, 2013 12:00:49 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 3898 ms

This seems like the key component: INFO: No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath.

I've tried cleaning the projects, redefining the servers, and even creating whole new workspaces. I've clearly missed the mark.

Any tips on getting this cleaned up would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

STS has a metadata folder under its workspace. You will see the actual error in .log file under C:\Users\firstname.lastname\Documents\workspace-sts-3.9.2.RELEASE.metadata

Answer 2

xml was not in the WEB-INF folder, thats why i was getting this error, make sure that web.xml and xxx-servlet.xml is inside WEB_INF folder and not in the webapp folder .

Answer 3

I got a silly error it took me an embarrassingly long to solve.... Check out my pom.xml ...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

<groupId>com.outbottle</groupId>
<artifactId>PersonalDetailsMVC</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>

<name>PersonalDetailsMVC</name>

<properties>
    <endorsed.dir>${project.build.directory}/endorsed</endorsed.dir>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    <spring.version>4.0.1.RELEASE</spring.version>
    <jstl.version>1.2</jstl.version>
    <javax.servlet.version>3.0.1</javax.servlet.version>
</properties>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax</groupId>
        <artifactId>javaee-web-api</artifactId>
        <version>7.0</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>${javax.servlet.version}</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>jstl</groupId>
        <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
        <version>${jstl.version}</version>
    </dependency>

</dependencies>

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.8</source>
                <target>1.8</target>
                <compilerArguments>
                    <endorseddirs>${endorsed.dir}</endorseddirs>
                </compilerArguments>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.3</version>
            <configuration>
                <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.6</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>validate</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>copy</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <outputDirectory>${endorsed.dir}</outputDirectory>
                        <silent>true</silent>
                        <artifactItems>
                            <artifactItem>
                                <groupId>javax</groupId>
                                <artifactId>javaee-endorsed-api</artifactId>
                                <version>7.0</version>
                                <type>jar</type>
                            </artifactItem>
                        </artifactItems>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Problem was my package name. It MUST be "com.outbottle" (then config/controllers/model/etc) for it to work. As you can see above, I used Maven (for the first time), Spring, 1.8 JDK and nearly had a stroke debugging this issue. All running on Glassfish (Tomcat is ok too for the above pom config). That said, I'm all happy with myself now and know Maven and Spring much better for the next step of my Spring learning curve. Hoping this helps you also!

Answer 4

I also had the same problem. My maven had tomcat7 plugin but the JRE environment was 1.6. I changed my tomcat7 to tomcat6 and the error was gone.

Answer 5

Watch out if you are using Maven. Your folder's structure must be right.

When using Maven, the WEB-INF directory must be inside webapp:

src/main/webapp/WEB-INF

Answer 6

This turned out to be a stupid error. My log4j wasn't configured to capture my error output. I was throwing configuration errors in the background and once I fixed those I was good to go and my request mappings worked fine.