JBoss/Tomcat not starting

[gchianes]

The bundle jboss-3.0.4/tomcat-4.1.12 on one of our
production servers just stopped working yesterday.
Researching the error message seems to point to the
web.xml file. This is very odd: The web.xml file has
not changed on this machine since it was installed in
January. In fact, nothing has changed on the machine
in months. Any suggestions on where to look would
be greatly appreciated.

The full error is:

2003-07-17 21:14:48,076 ERROR [org.apache.commons.digester.Digester] Parse Error at line 32 column 11: The content of element
type "web-app" must match "(icon?,display-name?,description?,distributable?,context-param*,filter*,filter-mapping*,listener*,s
ervlet*,servlet-mapping*,session-config?,mime-mapping*,welcome-file-list?,error-page*,taglib*,resource-env-ref*,resource-ref*,
security-constraint*,login-config?,security-role*,env-entry*,ejb-ref*,ejb-local-ref*)".
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The content of element type "web-app" must match "(icon?,display-name?,description?,distributab
le?,context-param*,filter*,filter-mapping*,listener*,servlet*,servlet-mapping*,session-config?,mime-mapping*,welcome-file-list
?,error-page*,taglib*,resource-env-ref*,resource-ref*,security-constraint*,login-config?,security-role*,env-entry*,ejb-ref*,ej
b-local-ref*)".
at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:232)
at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.error(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:173)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:362)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.handleEndElement(XMLDTDValidator.java(Compiled Code))
at org.apache.xerces.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.handleEndElement(XMLDTDValidator.java(Compiled Code))
at org.apache.xerces.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.endElement(XMLDTDValidator.java(Compiled Code))
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.handleEndElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java(Compiled
Code))
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanEndElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java(Compiled C
ode))
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(XMLDocumentFragmentScanner
Impl.java(Compiled Code))
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:333)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.StandardParserConfiguration.parse(StandardParserConfiguration.java:525)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.StandardParserConfiguration.parse(StandardParserConfiguration.java:581)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:147)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1158)
at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1495)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.applicationConfig(ContextConfig.java:282)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.start(ContextConfig.java:639)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:243)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:166)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:3493)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:821)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:807)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:579)
at org.jboss.web.catalina.EmbeddedCatalinaService41.createWebContext(EmbeddedCatalinaService41.java:432)
at org.jboss.web.catalina.EmbeddedCatalinaService41.performDeploy(EmbeddedCatalinaService41.java:306)
at org.jboss.web.AbstractWebContainer.start(AbstractWebContainer.java:300)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.start(MainDeployer.java:807)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:621)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:585)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor12.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java(Compiled Code))
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java(Compiled Code))
at org.jboss.mx.capability.ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.java:284)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:517)
at org.jboss.util.jmx.MBeanProxy.invoke(MBeanProxy.java:174)
at $Proxy4.deploy(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.URLDeploymentScanner.deploy(URLDeploymentScanner.java:435)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.URLDeploymentScanner.scanDirectory(URLDeploymentScanner.java:656)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.URLDeploymentScanner.scan(URLDeploymentScanner.java:507)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.AbstractDeploymentScanner.startService(AbstractDeploymentScanner.java:261)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceMBeanSupport.start(ServiceMBeanSupport.java:165)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor9.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:40)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:335)
at org.jboss.mx.capability.ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.java:284)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:517)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceController$ServiceProxy.invoke(ServiceController.java:978)
at $Proxy0.start(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceController.start(ServiceController.java:398)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor7.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:40)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:335)
at org.jboss.mx.capability.ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.java:284)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:517)
at org.jboss.util.jmx.MBeanProxy.invoke(MBeanProxy.java:174)
at $Proxy3.start(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.deployment.SARDeployer.start(SARDeployer.java:249)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.start(MainDeployer.java:807)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:621)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:585)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:569)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:61)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:40)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:335)
at org.jboss.mx.capability.ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedMBeanDispatcher.java:284)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:517)
at org.jboss.system.server.ServerImpl.doStart(ServerImpl.java:324)
at org.jboss.system.server.ServerImpl.start(ServerImpl.java:221)
at org.jboss.Main.boot(Main.java:148)
at org.jboss.Main$1.run(Main.java:381)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:566)

[jonlee]

Could you post the web.xml as well? My memory is failing, but is there a copy of the web.xml that Tomcat stores in a temp area? I don't currently have a running JBoss/Tomcat copy but Jetty does have temp storage for the web.xml. Is the temp copy readable if it exists?

Also, does the problem go away if you reboot JBoss after clearing the JBoss instance temp directory and the directory where your JSPs are compiled? Not trying to be Microsoft here, but just wondering if the temporary files got munged somehow?

[jonlee]

Normally, the temp files should get cleared when you stop and restart but just wanted to see if they were actually cleared, and if not, would manually clearing the work areas get rid of the problem.

If not, the original web.xml may somehow have been corrupted but just need to cover all bases.