Getting NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.addServlet in Spring Boot while running a Spring MVC application

Question

I am getting below exception when I am trying to run a Spring MVC application using Spring boot...

ContainerBase: A child container failed during start
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:188)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:1123)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:799)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:154)
    ... 6 more
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.addServlet(Ljava/lang/String;Ljavax/servlet/Servlet;)Ljavax/servlet/ServletRegistration$Dynamic;
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.ServletRegistrationBean.onStartup(ServletRegistrationBean.java:166)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext$1.onStartup(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:214)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.tomcat.ServletContextInitializerLifecycleListener.lifecycleEvent(ServletContextInitializerLifecycleListener.java:54)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:117)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5355)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    ... 6 more

Answer 1

If you want to find out where the class is being loaded from, try

java -verbose:class -jar foo.jar | grep javax.servlet.ServletContext

where foo.jar is the fat JAR produced by Gradle or Maven. For example, the ServletContext class could be getting read from an older servlet-api JAR in a JDK extensions directory instead of your Maven or Gradle dependencies.

The output of the command looks something like this...

$ java -verbose:class -jar build/libs/foo-0.2.3.jar | grep javax.servlet.ServletContext
[Loaded javax.servlet.ServletContext from jar:file:.../build/libs/foo-0.2.3.jar!/lib/javax.servlet-api-3.1.0.jar!/]
[Loaded javax.servlet.ServletContextListener from jar:file:.../build/libs/foo-0.2.3.jar!/lib/javax.servlet-api-3.1.0.jar!/]
[Loaded javax.servlet.ServletContextAttributeListener from jar:file:.../build/libs/foo-0.2.3.jar!/lib/javax.servlet-api-3.1.0.jar!/]