Not able to startup webapp inside of Tomcat

[csavory]

I can start my app (as a jar) from the command line, but as soon as I try to start from Tomcat (as a war) I get a a startup error.

SpringServletContainerInitializer will loop through all the WebApplicationInitializer that it finds:

        for (WebApplicationInitializer initializer : initializers) {
            initializer.onStartup(servletContext);
        }

SpringBootServletInitializer is found and and its onStartup is called.

SpringBootServletInitializer will create a new SpringApplicationBuilder on line 81:

SpringApplicationBuilder application = new SpringApplicationBuilder();

this is not passing any sources into the constructor.

Then on line 328 of SpringApplication there is an Assert that fails.

Assert.notEmpty(sources, "Sources must not be empty");

Am I configuring this wrong? I have tried several versions and even dropping back to 0.5.0.M7 and M6.

[dsyer]

I think you must be doing something wrong. How is it going to know what sources to use? Aren't you supposed to provide your own subclass of SpringBootServletInitializer?

[csavory]

I do provide my own subclass of SpringBootServletInitializer and it gets loaded fine. But then it appears (from the Debugger) as if SpringServletContainerInitializer is picking up SpringBootServletInitializer in addition to my subclass even though it is declared as abstract.

[dsyer]

I never saw that before. Can you share your code? Also, what version of Boot and Tomcat are you using/

[csavory]

I can't share my code, but I can try to reproduce with a sample project. I'll try to get to it this week. Where is the best place to upload?

[dsyer]

Github is great. But anywhere we can grab it and build it. If you can make it a Maven build that's best, but if it's a simple project, don't mind much.

[csavory]

@dsyer, here you go https://github.com/csavory/spring-boot-tomcat-startup-issue

[dsyer]

Your SpringBootServletInitializer doesn't actually override the configure() method, so you have provided a non-abstract instance of it with no sources. I guess that's the explanation?

[csavory]

I'm not following you. StringWebXml does override configure()

[dsyer]

Ah, didn't see that. I was looking at StringApplication. I guess you need to remove the extends ... from the declaration of that (personally I like to keep SpringBootServletInitializer in the same place is my main method, but it's up to you).

[csavory]

@dsyer it is working now that I consolidated StringWebXml into StringApplication

It's really not that important, but do you think there is still a defect here about having multiple SpringBootServletInitializer in the classpath? Or is that forbidden with spring-boot?

[dsyer]

@nedjs I don't think that's even vaguely relevant to this (closed) issue. If you have a usage question please go to stackoverflow. If you have an issue you want to raise with the Spring Boot team, please open a new one (with a bit more context to explain what you need than you provided so far please).

[nedjs]

@dsyer Oh my, I posted this on the wrong gosh darn issue last night in my tired haze. Sorry about that