I have a Spring MVC application with HtmlUnit dependencies. I am using HtmlUnit utilities inside @Component class. The problem is that after compilation(root cause java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/http/HttpEntity), on browser start up (index page), I see the page with:
> HTTP Status 500 - Servlet.init() for servlet mvc-dispatcher threw
> exception
type Exception report
message Servlet.init() for servlet mvc-dispatcher threw exception
description The server encountered an internal error that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception javax.servlet.ServletException: Servlet.init() for servlet mvc-dispatcher threw exception
root cause java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/http/HttpEntity
root cause java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.http.HttpEntity
org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1720)
org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1571)
java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors0(Native Method)
java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredConstructors(Class.java:2532)
java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors(Class.java:1901)
org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.determineCandidateConstructors(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:230)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.determineConstructorsFromBeanPostProcessors(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:976)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBeanInstance(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:949)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:490)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:461)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:295)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:223)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:292)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:194)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:607)
org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:932)
org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:479)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:647)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:598)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:661)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:517)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:458)
org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:138)
javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:158)
org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:501)
org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:103)
org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:950)
org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)
org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1070)
org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:611)
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:314)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
All dependencies needed I have included using maven, here is my pom.xml:
<dependency>
<groupId>net.sourceforge.htmlunit</groupId>
<artifactId>htmlunit</artifactId>
<version>2.15</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
<version>3.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
<artifactId>httpmime</artifactId>
<version>4.3.5</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
<artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
<version>4.3.5</version>
</dependency>
If I remove @Component annotation from class - the application doesn't fail on start up, but on actual controller call, which uses the class(with HtmlUnit inside) - same error. If I remove class that uses HtmlUnit from controller, everything works great. I also tried adding libraries by myself, without using maven - didn't help ether. The main mystery about it, is that my class(that uses HtmlUnit) perfectly works in usual console application. So I tried many things, and I still don't get what is the reason of this problem, why it doesn't work on Spring??? Maybe HtmlUnit is only meant for one threaded applications? But why there is ClassNotFoundException?
How are you running this application? Are you running it as a war archive in a tomcat server? If so, does you war archive include you htmlunit dependencies in the /WEB-INF/lib folder? The runtime context in which you are running the application obviously does not have the same classpath as your console application.
Your htmlunit dependencies should either be under /WEB-INF/lib, or in the server classpath (the latter is not recommended though).