Tomcat7 deployment error

Question

I have a web application that I can build and test within my Eclipse environment. It runs perfectly fine when I run the application within Eclipse environment. However when I deployed it to my Tomcat7 server on Ubuntu, it reported errors.

I launched my Tomcat using the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat7 start

And initially it prompted to be OK at server startup:

 * Starting Tomcat servlet engine tomcat7                                [ OK ]

But when I typed the address in the browser: http://localhost:8080/RestWS, it didn't respond but just blank screen. Then it timed out and crashed.

I looked up the log file located at /var/log/tomcat7, it shows the following error message:

INFO: Deploying web application archive /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/RestWS.war
Mar 14, 2014 11:19:49 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWARs
SEVERE: Error waiting for multi-thread deployment of WAR files to complete
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:188)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWARs(HostConfig.java:751)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:471)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1412)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:312)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.setStateInternal(LifecycleBase.java:401)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.setState(LifecycleBase.java:346)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:1145)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:782)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1566)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1556)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)
Caused by: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.Code.<init>(Code.java:76)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.Attribute.readAttribute(Attribute.java:140)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.FieldOrMethod.<init>(FieldOrMethod.java:58)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.Method.<init>(Method.java:72)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ClassParser.readMethods(ClassParser.java:268)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ClassParser.parse(ClassParser.java:128)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsStream(ContextConfig.java:2032)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsJar(ContextConfig.java:1923)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsUrl(ContextConfig.java:1891)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotations(ContextConfig.java:1877)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.webConfig(ContextConfig.java:1270)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:855)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:345)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5161)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:895)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:871)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:615)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:958)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployWar.run(HostConfig.java:1599)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
    ... 4 more

Mar 14, 2014 11:19:49 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDirectory
INFO: Deploying web application directory /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT
Mar 14, 2014 11:20:03 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDirectories
SEVERE: Error waiting for multi-thread deployment of directories to completehostConfig.deployWar=Deploying web application archive {0}
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:188)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectories(HostConfig.java:1018)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:473)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1412)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:312)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.setStateInternal(LifecycleBase.java:401)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.setState(LifecycleBase.java:346)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:1145)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:782)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1566)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1556)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
    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)
Caused by: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.io.DataInputStream.readUTF(DataInputStream.java:661)
    at java.io.DataInputStream.readUTF(DataInputStream.java:564)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ConstantUtf8.<init>(ConstantUtf8.java:48)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.Constant.readConstant(Constant.java:129)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ConstantPool.<init>(ConstantPool.java:60)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ClassParser.readConstantPool(ClassParser.java:209)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ClassParser.parse(ClassParser.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsStream(ContextConfig.java:2032)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsJar(ContextConfig.java:1923)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotationsUrl(ContextConfig.java:1891)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processAnnotations(ContextConfig.java:1877)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.webConfig(ContextConfig.java:1270)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:855)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:345)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5161)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:895)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:871)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:615)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectory(HostConfig.java:1095)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployDirectory.run(HostConfig.java:1617)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
    ... 4 more

I'm using Tomcat 7 and JDK 7 on Ubuntu 12.04. So what caused the problem? Why didn't Tomcat respond? It worked fine when I launched it in Eclipse though.

Solution

It looks like the JVM is running out of memory, hence the error:

java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space

Check your Tomcat configuration and make sure that Tomcat is only allocating as much memory as is appropriate for your system.

You can find more information on modifying the heap size and other variables here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6398053/cant-change-tomcat-7-heap-size/10950387#10950387

Comments

[tonga]

Thanks a lot Ross. This is the exact cause that results in server crash. I changed the default heap size in etc/default/tomcat7 and it works! The default heap size of Tomcat is only 128M (don't know why). So I overwrote it with -Xms512m -Xmx1024m and it works. Thanks a lot!