This application has no explicit mapping for /error, so you are seeing this as a fallback. Why isn't HomeController passing the request to the view?

Question

I'm following the example in Spring in Action 4th edition, Chapter 5 and running the Spittr example app.

When making any request, but for this question specifically:

http://localhost:8080/

I get the following error:

This application has no explicit mapping for /error, so you are seeing this as a fallback.

There was an unexpected error (type=Internal Server Error, status=500). Error resolving template "home", template might not exist or might not be accessible by any of the configured Template Resolvers.

I've looked at: This application has no explicit mapping for /error where the solution was to have the main class at the top of the package hierachy. I've tried this without any success.

Here's the code:

SpittrApplication.java

package spittr;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpittrApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpittrApplication.class, args);
    }
}

HomeController.java

package spittr.web.controller;

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/")
public class HomeController {

  @RequestMapping(method = GET)
  public String home(Model model) {
    return "home";
  }

}

The template is under src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/views/home.jsp

The console logs the following error:

Servlet.service() for servlet [dispatcherServlet] in context with path [] threw exception [Request processing failed; nested exception is org.thymeleaf.exceptions.TemplateInputException: Error resolving template "home", template might not exist or might not be accessible by any of the configured Template Resolvers] with root cause