Incompatibility version of Tomcat 7, Throwing java.lang.abstractmethoderror

Question

Actually I am migrating my application from Tomcat 5 to Tomcat 7.0.37. It is giving me an java.lang.abstractmethoderror exception when I am starting the server. I am using ANT to build my application. I have read many posts and tried many solutions also but non is working for me. The stack trace is:

org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve invoke
SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet [jsp] in context with path [] threw exception 
[java.lang.AbstractMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.JspFactory.getJspApplicationContext(Ljavax/servlet/ServletContext;)Ljavax/servlet/jsp/JspApplicationContext;] with root cause
java.lang.AbstractMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.JspFactory.getJspApplicationContext(Ljavax/servlet/ServletContext;)Ljavax/servlet/jsp/JspApplicationContext;
    at org.apache.jsp.index_jsp._jspInit(index_jsp.java:22)
    at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.init(HttpJspBase.java:49)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.getServlet(JspServletWrapper.java:171)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:354)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:391)
    at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:334)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:306)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:240)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:161)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:164)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:100)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:380)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:243)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:188)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:166)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:288)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:724)

Here is the build.xml file used by ant

<project name="XYZ" default="all" basedir="..">
    <property name="build" value="build" />
    <property name="parm" value="parm" />
    <property name="src" value="src" />
    <property name="lib" value="lib" />
    <property name="classes" value="classes" />
    <property name="jars" value="jars" />
    <property name="war" value="war" />

    <target name="init">
        <!-- Create the time stamp -->
        <tstamp />  

        <condition property="isIncrementalBuild">
            <and>
                <istrue value="${build.incremental}" />
            </and>
        </condition>
    </target>

    <target name="compile" depends="init" description="Compile component sources">      
        <!--delete dir="WEB-INF/classes/com" quiet="yes" /-->       
        <javac srcdir="src" verbose="true" debug="true" deprecation="true" destdir="WEB-INF/classes">
            <classpath refid="project.classpath" />
        </javac>

    </target>   

    <target name="build" depends="compile" description="Build outofmem">        
        <delete file="war/${webarchive.name}" quiet="no" />
        <war destfile="war/${webarchive.name}" webxml="WEB-INF/web.xml" manifest="mf/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF" >
            <classes dir="WEB-INF/classes" />
            <fileset dir="jsp"/>
            <webinf  dir="./WEB-INF"    includes="**/*" excludes="web.xml, **/*.jar, **/*.class"/>
            <lib file="WEB-INF/lib/*.jar" />
        </war>
    </target>


</project>

It looks like a classpath problem. You say you are using ant, could your antpath look for tomcat libraries in a wrong place or with a wrong name ? — Serge Ballesta, Aug 07 '14 at 14:06
@SergeBallesta I have declared classpath in build.xml and there it uses build and compile as target. But what exactly has to be done is not being understood in that file. — Jarvis, Aug 08 '14 at 08:12
Try to show your build.xml (or just relevant parts). Maybe someone will be able to help you. — Serge Ballesta, Aug 08 '14 at 08:19
Ok, I've put it in the question for you. You can delete the answer. — Serge Ballesta, Aug 08 '14 at 15:06
@SergeBallesta Thanks a lot mate... Was able to remove the error. — Jarvis, Aug 11 '14 at 10:58

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 11 '14 at 10:57

After a lot of R&D on this and working for almost four days, I was able to remove the error from the IDE. The problem was with classpath(buildpath) only. Everywhere there is written that conflicting jars or mismatching jars & just two jars given that could lead to that. But actually there are jars related to servlet-api, servlet, jsp-api and jasper that are creating a problem. After removing them from the buildpath and WEB-INF folder. Don't get afraid if you are getting compilation errors in the project because that will be taken care by the server runtime of Apache that you will add in the buildpath in order to remove the compilation errors. Now I was able to deploy my application and hit the server.

Thanks

Incompatibility version of Tomcat 7, Throwing java.lang.abstractmethoderror

1 Answers1