java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager

59,470

Solution 1

You miss the javax.el-api as dependency. Add:

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.el</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.el-api</artifactId>
    <version>3.0.0</version>
</dependency>

to your pom.xml

Solution 2

Downgrade hibernate-validator to version 5 and it will work fine with Tomcat 7. In my case I add next dependency to my pom:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
    <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
    <version>5.4.3.Final</version>
</dependency>

Or you can add newer el-api.jat to tomcat lib folder.

Solution 3

Hibernate Validator 6.x -> Bean Validation 2.0 (JSR 380) -> EL3.0

Hibernate Validator 5.x -> Bean Validation 1.1 (JSR 349) -> EL2.2

Bean Validation 1.0 (JSR 303) -> (I'm not sure)

so,it also influence others version (tomcat,jdk,jsp,servlet)

such as tomcat7, if you want to use Hibernate Validator, should use Hibernate Validator 5.x, el 2.2 (and servlet 3.0, jsp 2.2 and jdk 6+)

Solution 4

Please refer to Hibernate validation "Unable to initialize javax.el.ExpressionFactory" error

use

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
   <artifactId>javax.el</artifactId>
   <version>3.0.1-b08</version>
</dependency>

Solution 5

I'm using Tomcat 7.0.9 and couldn't change to any newer one due my company bureaucracy. Importing EL as a dependency didn't solve it either.

At Tomcat's root folder -> lib I replaced old el-api (2.2 version of it) with a new 3.0 (from local .m2\repository\javax\el\javax.el-api\3.0.0). Then, isolating tomcat's dependencies correctly (as shown here) made my WAR be correctly deployed at Tomcat 7.0.9

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J_S
Author by

J_S

Updated on March 31, 2021

Comments

  • J_S
    J_S almost 3 years

    I'm working on a webapp in Spring using Spring Tool Suite. If I build and deploy the application there using the IDE onto the provided Pivotal tc Server, it works just fine. However, if I do a manual "mvn clean package" build and attempt to deploy it to a standalone Tomcat server (using newest Tomcat 7), it throws the following exception:

    2017-08-23 15:24:13 WARN  AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext:551 - Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Bean instantiation via factory method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to instantiate [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter]: Factory method 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'mvcValidator' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager
    2017-08-23 15:24:13 ERROR DispatcherServlet:502 - Context initialization failed
    org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Bean instantiation via factory method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to instantiate [org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter]: Factory method 'requestMappingHandlerAdapter' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'mvcValidator' defined in org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager
    

    Upon further inspection, it does complain few lines higher above about not loading jars:

    sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
    INFO: Deploying web application archive D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.war
    sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
    INFO: validateJarFile(D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-INF\lib\el-api-2.2.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/el/Expression.class
    sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
    INFO: validateJarFile(D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-INF\lib\javax.servlet-api-3.1.0.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
    sie 23, 2017 3:24:12 PM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
    INFO: validateJarFile(D:\Apache-Tomcat-7.0\webapps\TestApp-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT\WEB-INF\lib\tomcat-el-api-8.0.21.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 2.3, section 9.7.2. Offending class: javax/el/Expression.class
    2017-08-23 15:24:13 INFO  ContextLoader:304 - Root WebApplicationContext: initialization started
    

    My pom.xml:

    <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
      <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
      <groupId>com.exmaple.mvc</groupId>
      <artifactId>TestApp</artifactId>
      <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
      <packaging>war</packaging>
      <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
            <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
            <version>4.3.10.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
            <version>1.6.6</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
           <groupId>log4j</groupId>
           <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
           <version>1.2.17</version>
           <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>jms</artifactId>
                <groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
                <groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
                <groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
            <dependency>
            <groupId>jstl</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
            <version>1.2</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.12</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.mockito/mockito-all -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
            <artifactId>mockito-all</artifactId>
            <version>1.9.5</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/commons-lang/commons-lang -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
            <version>2.3</version>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.hibernate/hibernate-validator -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
            <version>6.0.1.Final</version>
        </dependency>
    
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.0</version>
        </dependency>
      </dependencies>
    
        <build>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </build>
    
    </project>
    

    What's the reason for this behavior and how can I solve this?

    EDIT More information:

    Adding <scope>provided</scope> to javax.servlet-api seems to fix the warning about javax.servlet-api not being loaded at the start. Problem with el-api still remains.

    I've checked the tomcat/lib directory and it already contains el-api.jar in it, which is likely why it tells me it's not going to load the one I list in pom.xml. The thing is, adding <scope>provided</scope> doesn't fix it either. Whatever I do, it still complains gives me the same java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager error.

    SOLUTION

    In addition to the part in the edit above regarding javax.servlet-api the problem with el-api was that I was running a Tomcat 7 with provided el-api jar in version 2.2. The missing class was introduced in el-api 3.0. Running the same webapp in Tomcat 8 (with el-api 3.0 jar) works properly.

  • J_S
    J_S over 6 years
    I've tried it before. The thing is - I still get this error, plus tomcat tells me just like before that it failed to load el-api jar when it starts deploying the app. When I look into the tomcat/lib directory, it already contains el-api.jar in it, which is likely why it tells me it's not going to load the one I list in pom.xml. The thing is, adding <scope>provided</scope> doesn't fix it either. Whatever I do, it still complains gives me the same java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/el/ELManager error.
  • Jens
    Jens over 6 years
    @JacekŚlimok Which Version of javax.el-api do you use?
  • J_S
    J_S over 6 years
    As for the provided version in tomcat/lib - jar file name doesn't specify it (it's el-api.jar). According to MANIFEST.MF inside it's version 2.2: pastebin.com/sHpZKxrF
  • Jens
    Jens over 6 years
    @JacekŚlimok This class was introduced in Version 3.0. So it is not available in 2.2
  • J_S
    J_S over 6 years
    This solves my issue. Running it on Tomcat 8 (current newest versionn 8.5.20) works fine. Its provided el-api is version 3.0. Marked this as an answer. If you wish to, you may add that the issue was really with the fact that I was running Tomcat 7 with older el-api.
  • Impulse The Fox
    Impulse The Fox about 6 years
    I need it running on Tomcat 7. Any way to do this?
  • zkvarz
    zkvarz almost 6 years
    @JacekŚlimok Thanks a lot, you saved my day! I've run my war file successfully only on Tomcat 8 (8.5.31 to be precise).
  • Krum
    Krum over 5 years
    What is this? What triggers this error? Why is this not documented anywhere except on this one stackoverflow post?
  • Chris Clark
    Chris Clark about 5 years
    This was the solution for me. Now I have to explain to our CTO and Chief Architect that Tomcat 7 is not compatible with the app. I should note that I tried deploying the app to Tomcat 9 and this problem was not present, so this may be our opportunity to upgrade 😊
  • Giorgi Tsiklauri
    Giorgi Tsiklauri almost 5 years
    Actually, this is not the proper solution. When running on Tomcat7, you can add el-api explicitly on classpath, but in this case, you will have a conflicting classes available in both - Tomcat libs and your projects dependencies. Running on Tomcat 8 works fine, but adding the el-api results in what I wrote. This post addresses the question further: stackoverflow.com/questions/8487048/…
  • Sanket Mehta
    Sanket Mehta almost 4 years
    Thanks. I added this dependency along with the javax.el 2.2.4 in my pom. And it works fine.
  • Faraz
    Faraz over 3 years
    Thank you Rado for this awesome answer
  • eli
    eli almost 3 years
    Works exactly as i wanted