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I created a spring boot web application (in IntelliJ IDEA), which runs locally without problems.

I then built an artifact (Build -> Build Artifacts... -> my_app:jar -> Build), which created a jar file in directory "out".

I tried to deploy the app to heroku following exactly the steps described in this walkthrough by heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/deploying-spring-boot-apps-to-heroku

Note: the walkthrough does not mention a Procfile so I didn't create one.

When opening the app's address in the browser I faced an "Application error".

The logs show that building the app was successful but there are apparently "No web processes running":

2020-02-06T20:42:19.262364+00:00 app[api]: Release v1 created by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:42:19.598724+00:00 app[api]: Release v2 created by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:42:19.262364+00:00 app[api]: Initial release by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:42:19.598724+00:00 app[api]: Enable Logplex by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:46:11.000000+00:00 app[api]: Build started by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:46:56.626428+00:00 app[api]: Release v3 created by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:46:56.626428+00:00 app[api]: Deploy 93b6dfea by user michaels@icloud.com 2020-02-06T20:47:04.000000+00:00 app[api]: Build succeeded 2020-02-06T20:48:22.485742+00:00 heroku[router]: at=error code=H14 desc="No web processes running" method=GET path="/" host=my-app.herokuapp.com request_id=22e30a92-5094-4f8b-a51c-3f21177b19dc fwd="95.88.203.176" dyno= connect= service= status=503 bytes= protocol=https

I checked whether a dyno was running using the following command:

heroku ps

Result:

No dynos on ⬢ infinite-sky-81114

I then ran the following command to start a dyno:

heroku ps:scale web=1

Result:

Scaling dynos... ! ▸ Couldn't find that process type (web).

So the application doesn't run because there is no dyno - but I am not able to start a dyno.

How can I make this work?

steady_progress
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4 Answers4

6

Assuming you are using JAR, Procfile will be created by default. Are you sure your web dyno is still running ? If you are using cli, you could check using heroku ps to see what is the status. If it says no dynos you can scale up using heroku ps:scale web=1 and try heroku open to launch app.

If your using WAR you can follow https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/war-deployment and yes you need the Procfile.

Also while running the spring boot application on standalone tomcat don't forget to follow steps here https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/2.1.10.RELEASE/reference/html/howto-traditional-deployment.html

Here are some screen shots that I took while doing spring boot heroku integration.

ProcFile enter image description here

Pom (with WebRunner plugin) enter image description here Demo Application (Note the use of SpringBootServletInitializer). You will get 404 if you don't use it.

enter image description here

Home page enter image description here

Heroku logs enter image description here

s7vr
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  • thank you very much for your answer ... I checked whether there was a dyno running. Since this was not the case I tried to start a dyno. This, however, resulted in the following error message: "Scaling dynos... ! ▸ Couldn't find that process type (web).", see my updated post – steady_progress Feb 09 '20 at 15:00
  • You are welcome. Could you please review https://help.heroku.com/W23OAFGK/why-am-i-seeing-couldn-t-find-that-process-type-when-trying-to-scale-dynos ? and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48512013/couldnt-find-that-process-type-heroku. Could you please confirm if your using WAR ? Or running locally with standalone tomcat ? – s7vr Feb 09 '20 at 15:07
  • I would also recommend creating a default Procfile in the root https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/procfile#procfile-format. Use the one with SpringBoot. – s7vr Feb 09 '20 at 15:16
  • What exactly do you mean by "using WAR"? I didn't run "mvn install" so no .war file was created in folder "target" ... I guess this means I'm not using WAR. But even if a .war file existed in folder "target", how would that matter for heroku given that the content of the "target" folder is not pushed to heroku (i.e. is ignored by git)? – steady_progress Feb 09 '20 at 16:04
  • I'm using Intellij IDEA Community Edition to run the app locally. Which type of server Intellij IDEA is using in the background (Glassfish, tomcat, etc.) I don't know. – steady_progress Feb 09 '20 at 16:07
  • Thanks for explanation. With the git deployment, Heroku builds the artifact for you. So it doesn’t use the one that you generated locally. In your case with spring boot locally the application is run using embedded container. It looks like you have some problem with the dyno. We can try couple of things. You can review the link that I sent earlier regarding dyno process not being up (https://help.heroku.com/W23OAFGK/why-am-i-seeing-couldn-t-find-that-process-type-when-trying-to-scale-dynos). Also you can try adding the Procfile and do another deployment. – s7vr Feb 09 '20 at 16:19
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/207502/discussion-between-user2683814-and-steady-progress). – s7vr Feb 09 '20 at 16:22
  • I now got rid of the error message “No web processes running”, a dyno is running ... however, the app still doesn't run on heroku ... I created a new question for this new problem here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60139347/deploying-spring-boot-application-to-heroku-error-message-app-crashed – steady_progress Feb 09 '20 at 17:37
2

Create Procfile with just

web: java -Dspring.profiles.active=default -Dserver.port=$PORT -jar target/*.jar

Also don't forget to add the source to heroku to heroku git by doing heroku create. This will put the source code to heroku git and when the dynos are built it will deploy your application from the source code.

Here is my example project that is starter for you to deploy spring boot application to cloud. https://github.com/reflexdemon/cloud-project

I have also written a blog on deploying spring boot application to heroku. Hope that helps. https://blog.vpv.io/2018/02/undocumented-java-web-application.html

reflexdemon
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1

It looks like you're trying to deploy a WAR file. You cannot run a WAR file without a web server. You have two options:

  1. Spring Boot can bundle your application with an embedded web server. This would avoid the issue altogether.
  2. Use webapp-runner which will run a WAR file for you. Heroku's Maven plugin can help you setting it up.

I recommend the first approach. Heroku has a great walkthrough on setting up a Spring boot application.

Malax
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  • thank you very much for your comment. I followed the walkthrough on deploying a spring boot application linked in your comment. I still get an application error although heroku seems to have succeeded in building the application. I rewrote my question to describe what exactly I did and which error I met with (see above) – steady_progress Feb 06 '20 at 21:02
  • Do I perhaps need to include a Procfile after all? – steady_progress Feb 08 '20 at 19:34
0

a more flexible approach is to use the Heroku Container Registry which allows to run your Docker-based application.
This approach allows to run the very same application image you build/test locally and does not require to add Heroku-specific configuration (Procfile).

Prerequisites

Working Docker and Heroku client, and ensure your account is already authenticated:

  • login to Heroku heroku login
  • login to Container Registry heroku container:login

Define Docker image

Create a Dockerfile

FROM adoptopenjdk/openjdk11:latest

RUN mkdir -p /software
ADD target/myapp.jar /software/myapp.jar
CMD java -Dserver.port=$PORT $JAVA_OPTS -jar /software/myapp.jar

Note: injecting the env variable $PORT is necessary to run the SpringBoot application on Heroku

build the image

docker build -t mydomain/myapp .

and test locally

docker run -it --name myapp -p 8886:8886 mydomain/myapp

Note: in the example above your application.properties defines server.port=8886 to use 8886 as port of your Spring Boot application

Tag, push and deploy to Heroku

Next tag the image then push it to Heroku: 

docker tag mydomain/myapp registry.heroku.com/myapp/web
docker push registry.heroku.com/myapp/web

Finally the application can start: 

heroku container:release web -a myapp

You can also scale up (or down) the application:

# undeploy
heroku ps:scale web=0 --app myapp

Reference
See https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/container-registry-and-runtime

Beppe C
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