java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: HttpServletRequest

Question

I was using Tomcat v8.0.15 on Eclipse Luna, it was working fine. Later, I installed Netbeans; which automatically installed another instance of Tomcat. I deleted one of them. In the result, tomcat stopped working on Eclipse; whenever I try to start tomcat, this error appears:

Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: HttpServletRequest
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2693)
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods(Class.java:1967)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.Introspection.getDeclaredMethods(Introspection.java:127)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebAnnotationSet.loadMethodsAnnotation(WebAnnotationSet.java:273)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebAnnotationSet.loadApplicationServletAnnotations(WebAnnotationSet.java:133)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebAnnotationSet.loadApplicationAnnotations(WebAnnotationSet.java:65)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.applicationAnnotationsConfig(ContextConfig.java:334)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:774)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:305)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:117)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5095)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    ... 6 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: HttpServletRequest
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1295)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1147)
    ... 20 more

It is not able to find the HttpServletRequest class. Sounds like your uninstallation probably removed some files that are still required by your working installation. The easiest thing to do might be to install tomcat from scratch. — mkasberg, Dec 27 '14 at 01:38
Thanks buddy, I tried to install a fresh copy of Tomcat, and had the **blank server name issue** described in this [link](http://crunchify.com/eclipse-how-to-fix-installing-apache-tomcat-server-issue-blank-server-name-field/), I applied the solution available there. It worked for the installation _but still having the same problem_ (Server Tomcat v8.0 Server at localhost failed to start; same console errors). — Rizwan Awan, Dec 27 '14 at 14:38

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 20 '15 at 04:54

So it happened to me just now and here is how I solved it: In the web.xml file I attempted to modify the servlet-name in my "servlet" tag from "DefaultServlet" to "DispatcherServlet", however the servlet-name in my "servlet-mapping" tag remained "DefaultServlet". All I had to do is to set the SAME servlet name (so "DispatcherServlet") for both "servlet" and "servlet-mapping" in their respective "servlet-name" tags. Once done it worked as a charm.

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: HttpServletRequest

1 Answers1