Throws exceptions on Tomcat initialization, then acts weird

[siegersallee]

We're using GWT 2.6.1 and SmartClient Version: v9.1p_2014-06-04/PowerEdition Deployment (built 2014-06-04) and Eclipse Luna (4.4.0).

After deploying our War to Tomcat and re-starting Tomcat, we get a bunch of exceptions in the catalina.out log, but the app fires up and runs. It gives seemingly-random (but persistent) failures of various web service and DataSource calls -- that is, several of them don't work, but there's no apparent pattern to which ones, and it's a small percentage.

The other weird thing is that we (consistently) get a top-level exception in the MessagingServlet when the SmartGWT app first fires up, but the Tomcat access log shows lots of requests to OurApp/sc/messaging/... with a 200 (normal) status.

I'm not sure exactly when this started, but I'm pretty sure it was NOT at the same time as a change to the WAR.

I'm attaching the catalina log from starting up Tomcat, and web.xml. The web.xml has not been touched for a month.

[Blama]

Hi siegersallee ,

I noticed three things you can most likely fix:

Jan 08, 2016 11:12:07 AM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(/opt/eti/tomcat/tomcat7/webapps/OurApp/WEB-INF/lib/gwt-dev.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 3.0, section 10.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
Jan 08, 2016 11:12:07 AM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(/opt/eti/tomcat/tomcat7/webapps/OurApp/WEB-INF/lib/gwt-user.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 3.0, section 10.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class
Jan 08, 2016 11:12:07 AM org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader validateJarFile
INFO: validateJarFile(/opt/eti/tomcat/tomcat7/webapps/OurApp/WEB-INF/lib/servlet-api.jar) - jar not loaded. See Servlet Spec 3.0, section 10.7.2. Offending class: javax/servlet/Servlet.class

You should not deploy the two gwt-*.jars. Same goes most likely for servlet-api.jar. For me, this file is already in tomcat/lib, so you'd most likely be adding it twice.
I don't know about the MessagingServlet-404. The other spurious errors you mention are not in the logs, are they?

Best regards
Blama

[siegersallee]

Those 3 libs, while it's annoying, Tomcat already ignores them. That's what the log lines you quoted say. According to the Tomcat doc, it simply unloads any JAR that contains a Servlet.class (I've tested this; it's true). So they are harmless warnings, no? (Yeah, I know, it would be better to have them not there. It's an artifact of how we build the War now.)

The MessagingServlet 404 seems to be a serious problem, though, doesn't it? Any ideas what to do to investigate? I have not touched anything related to that in a month or more. Ever since I figured out to put it in web.xml, it has been problem-free, so I don't even know where to start.

[siegersallee]

And, no, I don't see exceptions or errors in any of the logs for the access problems. It's pretty unusual.

[Isomorphic]

What was the change to the WAR that precipitated these changes? The build version is from 2014, so this probably wasn't an upgrade right?

The RealtimeMessaging error isn't one we've had reported before, but it looks like the sort of thing that could happen with certain intervening proxies or firewalls (although presumably this is all local on your machine right?).

The logs you attached all show just the RealtimeMessaging exception when writing to an output stream (unless I missed something). Can you share the logs relate to the other random failures that you mentioned?