"Exception while loading the app" without a stack trace
I'm migrating my app from GlassFish 3.0.1 to GlassFish 3.1.1. Deployment fails, with the following error messages:
SEVERE: Exception while loading the app
SEVERE: Exception while shutting down application container
SEVERE: Exception while shutting down application container : java.lang.NullPointerException
SEVERE: java.lang.RuntimeException: Error occurred during deployment: Exception while shutting down application container : java.lang.NullPointerException. Please see server.log for more details.
There is no stack trace. I turned on the root logging level to FINEST, and the first SEVERE message occurs after a Weld message:
//...
FINE: WELD-000105 Enabled interceptor types for Manager
Enabled alternatives: [] []
Registered contexts: [interface javax.enterprise.context.SessionScoped, interface javax.enterprise.context.RequestScoped, interface javax.inject.Singleton, interface javax.enterprise.context.Dependent, interface javax.enterprise.context.ApplicationScoped, interface javax.enterprise.context.ConversationScoped]
Registered beans: 0
Specialized beans: 0
: []
And before several messages like these (for several different classes):
FINE: PWC4451: File cannot be read /opt/sun/glassfish-3.1.1/glassfish/domains/domain1/applications/QmsWeb/WEB-INF/classes/org/jboss/seam/transaction/SeamTransaction.class
FINE: PWC4451: File cannot be read /opt/sun/glassfish-3.1.1/glassfish/domains/domain1/applications/QmsWeb/WEB-INF/classes/org/jboss/seam/transaction/SeamTransaction.class
FINE: PWC4451: File cannot be read /opt/sun/glassfish-3.1.1/glassfish/domains/domain1/applications/QmsWeb/WEB-INF/classes/net/sf/ehcache/config/TerracottaConfiguration$ValueMode.class
//...
What could be causing this error? Could these PWC4451 messages be indicating that some libraries aren't being loaded?
Answer
This was due to a @ViewScoped bean that did not implement Serializable. Apparently, an older version of Weld that we were using didn't find it objectionable that a passivating-scoped bean wasn't Serializable, but this one failed silently because of it. Oh well, hope this saves someone some time.