Tomcat Failed to start

Question

I have installed Tomcat on windows XP through the Tomcat installer. I have installed JDK 1.6. But when I start Tomacat from services.msi on XP, I get the following error:

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.commons.digester.ObjectCreateRule.begin(ObjectCreateRule.java:204)
at org.apache.commons.digester.Rule.begin(Rule.java:152)
at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.startElement(Digester.java:1286)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.startElement(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractXMLDocumentParser.emptyElement(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(Unknown Source)

Answer 1

I believe the jar catalina.jar is not found.

Tomcat works like this.

1. It just needs a jar called Bootstrap.jar.
2. Then this Bootstrap looks for an architecture dependent binary library called APR (for Apache RunTime) through this APR lifecycle listener class that is not found.

So I think either something got wrong with the Tomcat Installation (this jar lives in the lib folder (assuming Tomcat version 6+)).

Do you have CATALINA_HOME environment variable defined (I have to check this is needed for Windows actually) ?

Update: You don't need the CATALINA_HOME system variable for window. When you installed Tomcat, I understand you also checked the service (and possibly) option.

One thing I'm thinking also is that you might have a previous (say tomcat 6) installation and have now installed a newer (say tomcat 7) and may be thought the service was going to be the same. Actually no, they don't have the same registry key in \HKLM\System\services, the new one is called Tomcat 7. So may be you are trying to start a new installation with an older tomcat setup. It's better to uninstall everything (if you did not add webapps or config) and reinstall (tick both 'native' and 'system' options (these are the APR, for better perfs and the new service setup respectively).