Logback problem on - Spring Boot 1.2.0 - Websphere Liberty Profile 8.5.5.x

[slavus]

Hi I encountered strange problem on spring boot 1.2.0 (This happens also for Spring boot 1.1.0 ).

It is not possible to start spring boot application on Websphere Liberty Profile 8.5.5.x as WAR application.

I created minimal spring boot app, and tried to start it on Liberty Profile, but app won't start. After little bit of investigation I found ffdc log with this

 java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.springframework.boot.logging.logback.LogbackLoggingSystem.getLoggerContext(LogbackLoggingSystem.java:142)
    at org.springframework.boot.logging.logback.LogbackLoggingSystem.getLogger(LogbackLoggingSystem.java:134)
    at org.springframework.boot.logging.logback.LogbackLoggingSystem.beforeInitialize(LogbackLoggingSystem.java:86)
    at org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingApplicationListener.onApplicationStartedEvent(LoggingApplicationListener.java:129)
    at org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingApplicationListener.onApplicationEvent(LoggingApplicationListener.java:121)
    at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.invokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:151)
    at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:128)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.publishEvent(EventPublishingRunListener.java:100)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.started(EventPublishingRunListener.java:54)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:278)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.web.SpringBootServletInitializer.run(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:117)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.web.SpringBootServletInitializer.createRootApplicationContext(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:108)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.web.SpringBootServletInitializer.onStartup(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:68)
    at org.springframework.web.SpringServletContainerInitializer.onStartup(SpringServletContainerInitializer.java:175)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebApp.initializeServletContainerInitializers(WebApp.java:2471)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebApp.initialize(WebApp.java:1034)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebApp.initialize(WebApp.java:6342)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.osgi.DynamicVirtualHost.startWebApp(DynamicVirtualHost.java:446)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.osgi.DynamicVirtualHost.startWebApplication(DynamicVirtualHost.java:441)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.osgi.WebContainer.startWebApplication(WebContainer.java:761)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.osgi.WebContainer.startModule(WebContainer.java:739)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.web.internal.WebModuleHandlerImpl.deployModule(WebModuleHandlerImpl.java:106)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.module.internal.DeployedAppInfoBase.deployModule(DeployedAppInfoBase.java:538)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.module.internal.DeployedAppInfoBase.deployModules(DeployedAppInfoBase.java:457)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.module.internal.DeployedAppInfoBase.deployApp(DeployedAppInfoBase.java:411)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.war.internal.WARApplicationHandlerImpl.install(WARApplicationHandlerImpl.java:73)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.internal.statemachine.StartAction.execute(StartAction.java:139)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.internal.statemachine.ApplicationStateMachineImpl.enterState(ApplicationStateMachineImpl.java:1166)
    at com.ibm.ws.app.manager.internal.statemachine.ApplicationStateMachineImpl.run(ApplicationStateMachineImpl.java:779)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)

It looks like this block off code is the problem

        Assert.isInstanceOf(LoggerContext.class, factory, String.format(
                "LoggerFactory is not a Logback LoggerContext but Logback is on "
                        + "the classpath. Either remove Logback or the competing "
                        + "implementation (%s loaded from %s). If you are using "
                        + "Weblogic you will need to add 'org.slf4j' to "
                        + "prefer-application-packages in WEB-INF/weblogic.xml",
                factory.getClass(), factory.getClass().getProtectionDomain()
                        .getCodeSource().getLocation()));

in debug session it looks like factory.getClass().getProtectionDomain() .getCodeSource() is null.

If I remove logback from maven model app starts

<dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
                    <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>

Any idea why this happens and how to fix it?

[wilkinsona]

Looking at the javadoc it's legal for getCodeSource() to return null so we need to protect against it.

The problem was introduced in e47435f and is in 1.1.8.RELEASE and later.