Eclipse & JSP: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.tagext.TagAttributeInfo.<init>(Ljava/lang/String;ZLjava/lang/String;ZZ)V

Question

I'm using Eclipse 3.4 with WTP 3.0.2 and running a fairly large Dynamic Web Project. I've set up the project so that I can access it at http://127.0.0.1:8080/share/ but whenever I do, I get the following error:

  java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.jsp.tagext.TagAttributeInfo.(Ljava/lang/String;ZLjava/lang/String;ZZ)V
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.TagLibraryInfoImpl.createAttribute(TagLibraryInfoImpl.java:572)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.TagLibraryInfoImpl.createTagInfo(TagLibraryInfoImpl.java:401)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.TagLibraryInfoImpl.parseTLD(TagLibraryInfoImpl.java:248)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.TagLibraryInfoImpl.(TagLibraryInfoImpl.java:162)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseTaglibDirective(Parser.java:423)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseDirective(Parser.java:492)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseElements(Parser.java:1552)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parse(Parser.java:126)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ParserController.doParse(ParserController.java:211)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ParserController.parse(ParserController.java:100)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.generateJava(Compiler.java:155)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:295)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:276)
  at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:264)
  at org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.compile(JspCompilationContext.java:563)
  at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:303)
  at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:314)
  at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:264)
  at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:853)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:269)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:188)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:213)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:172)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:127)
  at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:117)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:108)
  at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:174)
  at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:875)
  at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11BaseProtocol.java:665)
  at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:528)
  at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.runIt(LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.java:81)
  at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:689)
  at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

As none of the above files is my own, pointing out the cause of the problem is quite hard. Any ideas where to start looking?

Solution

I ended up answering my own question: the problem was that among the necessary JARs that I had added to Tomcat was a conflicting servlet.jar. When I removed this, the error disappeared.

Comments

[BalusC]

This will only cause future trouble. You should NEVER include server-specific libraries in webapp-specific library like /WEB-INF/lib. You should NEVER copy/duplicate loose server-specific JAR files around. servlet.jar is Tomcat specific. j2ee.jar is Glassfish specific. Don't mix them. Keep them there where they belongs, in the server's library. All you basically need to do is to add its file system path to the classpath (build path). In Eclipse, all you need to do is to integrate the server in Servers view and associate it with project by Targeted Runtime in project properties.