Spring tomcat start exception with StackOverflowError

I'm using tomcat 1.7 and it had been worked well. and today I restart tomcat and got me below StackOverflowError. The error message seems like log4j loop.
any help will be appreciated.

org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
 java.lang.StackOverflowError
        at java.util.HashMap.hash(HashMap.java:339)
        at java.util.HashMap.get(HashMap.java:557)
        at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:58)
        at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:270)
        at org.apache.log4j.Category.<init>(Category.java:57)
        at org.apache.log4j.Logger.<init>(Logger.java:37)
        at org.apache.log4j.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:43)
        at org.apache.log4j.LogManager.getLogger(LogManager.java:45)
        at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:64)
        at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:270)
        at org.apache.log4j.Category.<init>(Category.java:57)
        at org.apache.log4j.Logger.<init>(Logger.java:37)
        at org.apache.log4j.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:43)
        at org.apache.log4j.LogManager.getLogger(LogManager.java:45)
        at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:64)
        at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:270)
        at org.apache.log4j.Category.<init>(Category.java:57)
        at org.apache.log4j.Logger.<init>(Logger.java:37)
        at org.apache.log4j.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:43)
        at org.apache.log4j.LogManager.getLogger(LogManager.java:45)
        at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:64)
        at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:270)
        at org.apache.log4j.Category.<init>(Category.java:57)
        at org.apache.log4j.Logger.<init>(Logger.java:37)
        at org.apache.log4j.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:43)
        at org.apache.log4j.LogManager.getLogger(LogManager.java:45)
        at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:64)
        at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:270)
        at org.apache.log4j.Category.<init>(Category.java:57)
        at org.apache.log4j.Logger.<init>(Logger.java:37)
        at org.apache.log4j.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:43)
        at org.apache.log4j.LogManager.getLogger(LogManager.java:45)
        at org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory.getLogger(Log4jLoggerFactory.java:64)
        at org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.getLogger(LoggerFactory.java:270)
        at org.apache.log4j.Category.<init>(Category.java:57)
        at org.apache.log4j.Logger.<init>(Logger.java:37)

I have log libraries

org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.6.6
org.slf4j:jcl-over-slf4j:1.6.6
org.slf4j:slf4j-log4j12:1.6.6
log4j:log4j:1.2.15

Solution

Your dependency list (transitive dependencies included) must have both:

log4j-over-slf4j: a Log4j 1.2 replacement, that sends everything to SLF4j,
slf4j-log4j12: a SLF4j implementation that forwards everything to Log4j 1.2

hence the infinite loop. The log4j artifact you mention in your question is not taken into consideration (it must be listed on the classpath after log4j-over-slf4j).

Remove log4j-over-slf4j and you'll be fine.