Unable to find CDI BeanManager in a basic JSF project

Question

I'm trying to set up a basic project using JSF (using IntelliJ's default "hello world" project), but I keep on getting a javax.faces.FacesException: Unable to find CDI BeanManager exception when deploying to GlassFish. Is there something I forgot to set up? I'm pretty new at using JSF.

I am running the latest IntelliJ Idea Ultimate, GlassFish 5, JSF 2.3, and Java 1.8.

My dependencies (from [projectname].iml):

<orderEntry type="library" scope="PROVIDED" name="GlassFish 5.0.0" level="application_server_libraries" />
<orderEntry type="library" scope="PROVIDED" name="GlassFish 5.0.0 - JSF" level="application_server_libraries" />

My web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4_0.xsd"
         version="4.0">
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>*.xhtml</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

My faces-config.xml:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<faces-config version="2.2" xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee 
    http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_2.xsd">

</faces-config>

Full stacktrace:

java.lang.Exception: java.lang.IllegalStateException: ContainerBase.addChild: start: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: java.lang.RuntimeException: javax.faces.FacesException: Unable to find CDI BeanManager
    at com.sun.enterprise.web.WebApplication.start(WebApplication.java:136)
    at org.glassfish.internal.data.EngineRef.start(EngineRef.java:122)
    at org.glassfish.internal.data.ModuleInfo.start(ModuleInfo.java:291)
    at org.glassfish.internal.data.ApplicationInfo.start(ApplicationInfo.java:352)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.ApplicationLifecycle.deploy(ApplicationLifecycle.java:500)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.ApplicationLifecycle.deploy(ApplicationLifecycle.java:219)
    at org.glassfish.deployment.admin.DeployCommand.execute(DeployCommand.java:491)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$2$1.run(CommandRunnerImpl.java:540)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$2$1.run(CommandRunnerImpl.java:536)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAs(Subject.java:360)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$2.execute(CommandRunnerImpl.java:535)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$3.run(CommandRunnerImpl.java:566)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$3.run(CommandRunnerImpl.java:558)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAs(Subject.java:360)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl.doCommand(CommandRunnerImpl.java:557)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl.doCommand(CommandRunnerImpl.java:1465)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl.access$1300(CommandRunnerImpl.java:110)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$ExecutionContext.execute(CommandRunnerImpl.java:1847)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.CommandRunnerImpl$ExecutionContext.execute(CommandRunnerImpl.java:1723)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.AdminAdapter.doCommand(AdminAdapter.java:534)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.AdminAdapter.onMissingResource(AdminAdapter.java:224)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.StaticHttpHandlerBase.service(StaticHttpHandlerBase.java:190)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper$HttpHandlerCallable.call(ContainerMapper.java:463)
    at com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.ContainerMapper.service(ContainerMapper.java:168)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.HttpHandler.runService(HttpHandler.java:206)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.HttpHandler.doHandle(HttpHandler.java:180)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.HttpServerFilter.handleRead(HttpServerFilter.java:242)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.filterchain.ExecutorResolver$9.execute(ExecutorResolver.java:119)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.filterchain.DefaultFilterChain.executeFilter(DefaultFilterChain.java:284)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.filterchain.DefaultFilterChain.executeChainPart(DefaultFilterChain.java:201)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.filterchain.DefaultFilterChain.execute(DefaultFilterChain.java:133)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.filterchain.DefaultFilterChain.process(DefaultFilterChain.java:112)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.ProcessorExecutor.execute(ProcessorExecutor.java:77)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.nio.transport.TCPNIOTransport.fireIOEvent(TCPNIOTransport.java:539)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.strategies.AbstractIOStrategy.fireIOEvent(AbstractIOStrategy.java:112)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.strategies.WorkerThreadIOStrategy.run0(WorkerThreadIOStrategy.java:117)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.strategies.WorkerThreadIOStrategy.access$100(WorkerThreadIOStrategy.java:56)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.strategies.WorkerThreadIOStrategy$WorkerThreadRunnable.run(WorkerThreadIOStrategy.java:137)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.threadpool.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.doWork(AbstractThreadPool.java:593)
    at org.glassfish.grizzly.threadpool.AbstractThreadPool$Worker.run(AbstractThreadPool.java:573)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

I've tried a lot of the solutions posted online, but they don't seem to resolve the problem for me. — hummusw, Apr 18 '19 at 23:18
Do you have a beans.xml in the web applications WEB-INF directory? This enables CDI for the archive. Sounds like CDI is either not enabled for the application or bootstrapped because of an configuration issue. — Thomas Herzog, May 05 '19 at 09:09
@hummusw Unfortunately, I think the solution is to avoid Glassfish. [1] The book referenced in the helpful answer below from Urszula Szczęśniak states _"Sadly, GlassFish 5.0 (and 5.0.1 beta) doesn’t resolve some backing beans properly with the new version. You may either use the old descriptor format, which is fine for most Java EE 8 features, or you need to install a different app server, like Payara"_. [2] EE 8 servlets which are defined in **web.xml** and follow the Servlet 4.0 specification work fine on Wildfly 18. — skomisa, Dec 07 '19 at 19:47

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 05 '19 at 21:06

According to book "Practical JSF in Java EE 8" that I'm currently reading Glassfish 5.0 has problems accessing CDI backing beans for JSF if using Servlet 4. According to this book "If you'd like to use GlassFish 5, you need to provide Servlet version 3.1 in the web.xml configuration" or use Payara 5 server which is derived from GlassFish.

Personally I use Wildfly 13, so I did't test if that is true.

Unable to find CDI BeanManager in a basic JSF project

1 Answers1