Tomcat7: Error waiting for multi-thread deployment of WAR files to complete

Question

Tomcat 7.0.30 fails on startup (does not manage to start) with this exception:

SEVERE: Error waiting for multi-thread deployment of WAR files to complete

The following is the exception's full stack trace:

==> /usr/share/tomcat7/logs/catalina.out <==

Sep 17, 2012 2:43:22 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deploying web application archive /usr/share/tomcat7/webapps/cfwd.war
Sep 17, 2012 2:43:22 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWARs
SEVERE: Error waiting for multi-thread deployment of WAR files to complete
java.lang.InterruptedException
    at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.acquireSharedInterruptibly(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:1302)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerGet(FutureTask.java:248)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:111)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWARs(HostConfig.java:752)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:472)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.check(HostConfig.java:1454)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:296)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.backgroundProcess(ContainerBase.java:1374)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.processChildren(ContainerBase.java:1530)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.processChildren(ContainerBase.java:1540)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.run(ContainerBase.java:1519)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:679)

Note that cfwd.war is the only war file in the webapps directory (in addition to the usual default contents, as examples, manager, etc etc).

Any ideas about possible causes for this?

Answer 1

This is usually caused by an issue with the applciation class hierarchy. One example I have seen is with out of date classes introducing circular inheritance.

If you upgrade to 7.0.47 you'll get a more informative error message as to what the problem is. Alternatively, a clean build of your applciation may be enough to clean things up.