Error creating bean with name 'tomcatEmbeddedServletContainerFactory'

[ravirajamiyer]

We are having problems in making the WAR version of our Spring Boot Application. Here are the details:

Sprint boot version in our POM file:

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.4.RELEASE</version>
</parent>

The maven build creates a war artifact that we copy to webapps directory of Tomcat 8.5.15. There seems to be a NullPointerException that is root cause of the problem. The stack trace is below. Any ideas what we may be doing wrong?

2017-06-16 15:23:01.939 ERROR 22636 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.boot.SpringApplication               : Application startup failed

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'tomcatEmbeddedServletContainerFactory' defined in class path resource [org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/web/EmbeddedServletContainerAutoConfiguration$EmbeddedTomcat.class]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:564)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:483)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:306)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:197)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:761)
	at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:867)
	at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:543)
	at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.refresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:122)
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:737)
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refreshContext(SpringApplication.java:370)
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:314)
	at org.springframework.boot.web.support.SpringBootServletInitializer.run(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:151)
	at org.springframework.boot.web.support.SpringBootServletInitializer.createRootApplicationContext(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:131)
	at org.springframework.boot.web.support.SpringBootServletInitializer.onStartup(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:86)
	at org.springframework.web.SpringServletContainerInitializer.onStartup(SpringServletContainerInitializer.java:169)
	at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5196)
	at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
	at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:752)
	at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:728)
	at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:734)
	at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:952)
	at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployWar.run(HostConfig.java:1823)
	at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: null
	at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor.getCustomizers(EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor.java:77)
	at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor.postProcessBeforeInitialization(EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor.java:67)
	at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor.postProcessBeforeInitialization(EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor.java:54)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsBeforeInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:409)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1620)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:555)
	... 28 common frames omitted

[wilkinsona]

The line numbers in the stack trace for EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizerBeanPostProcessor don't match up with 1.5.4.RELEASE. It looks like 1.5.2 or earlier to me. Please check that you are actually using 1.5.4. If that doesn't help, please provide a sample that reproduces the problem

[ravirajamiyer]

Thank you. The problem indeed was the spring boot version. The POM file had versions spring boot version 1.5.4 and 1.5.2 mixed up in one of the child projects. Also we found out that, we had to remove the dependency of the spring-web project:

We removed the following from the POM file:

<dependency> <groupId>org.springframework</groupId> <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId> <version>4.3.7.RELEASE</version> </dependency>
and made sure we had this in the POM

<dependency> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId> </dependency>

It works now. Thanks.

[pushkargd]

I changed the Spring Boot Version from 1.4.2 to 1.5.7 and it works now. Thanks:)