java.lang.NoSuchMethodError javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()

Recently while working on my Spring Boot project, I came across an error method not found getVirtualServerName. This error was very frequent and bothersome. During the execution of Spring Boot project, I ran into NoSuchMethodError javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName() exception.  Despite going through maven dependency, it was harder to find out where the servlet-api jar was coming into my project build path. In my handling exceptions post, I showed how to handle exceptions better.

Issue -

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) [na:1.8.0_91]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:192) [na:1.8.0_91]
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:911) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:890) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1403) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1393) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266) [na:1.8.0_91]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142) [na:1.8.0_91]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617) [na:1.8.0_91]
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745) [na:1.8.0_91]
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [Pipeline[StandardEngine[Tomcat].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[]]]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5099) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
... 6 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [org.apache.catalina.authenticator.NonLoginAuthenticator[]]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:167) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.startInternal(StandardPipeline.java:170) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
... 8 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()Ljava/lang/String;
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.startInternal(AuthenticatorBase.java:1125) ~[tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150) [tomcat-embed-core-8.5.6.jar:8.5.6]
... 10 common frames omitted

Reason -

Depending on the build path, servlet-api jar that exists is not the right version. If it is older than 3.1, it doesn’t contain method getVirtualServerName().

How did I resolve this issue?

I describe the solution separately, but how I analyzed the issue here. I went through servlet-api jar and tried to find the class ServletContext that contains this method. But the Jar file that I had in my project, didn’t contain this method. That’s why the issue. Then it was simple to figure out based on maven dependencies. Once I had a dependency tree, I was able to nail down the dependency that was bringing the old version of servlet-api jar.

Solution -

1. Change the version of servlet-api jar
2. Considering this is a spring-boot project, provide a version of tomcat instead of using default tomcat 8.x which spring-boot provides.
3. In my case, the fix was to remove javaee.jar from the build path which was bringing servlet-api of an older version. When I changed the Java runtime library from 1.8 to 1.7, the project ran like a charm.

Conclusion

In this post, I showed how to resolve the error getVirtualServerName in ServletContext. If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my blog.