Tomcat in Eclipse: It runs but time out during startup anyway

Question

I\'m running a java web app in Eclipse (Helios) using Tomcat 7. The server startups up successfully (duration indicated) however Eclipse\'s progress bar still spins saying t

Answer 1

Some updates of Java cause problems with Eclipse's networking operation. Specifically, Eclipse tries to use IPv6 instead of IPv4 and sometimes fails. When Eclipse starts up Tomcat, one of the final steps that it does is tests the a debug call to Tomcat. This is likely to be the part that is hanging. Fortunately, the fix is very easy. We simply tell Eclipse to use IPv4 instead.

To do this, edit the eclipse.ini file (found in the Eclipse directory) and add the following to the end of the file on its own line:

-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

Restart Eclipse and you should be good to go.

Answer 2

This issue is related to a tomcat configured with HTTPS without a HTTP connector.

I had this SSL connector in server.xml and my tomcat in Eclipse is always showing Starting:

<Connector SSLEnabled="true" asyncTimeout="10000000" clientAuth="false" 
    connectionTimeout="10000000" keepAliveTimeout="10000000" 
    keystoreFile="/opt/config/selfsigned.p12" keystorePass="changeit" 
    keystoreType="PKCS12" maxThreads="200" port="443"
    protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" scheme="https"
    secure="true" sslProtocol="TLS"/>

I suppose Eclipse uses a HTTP connection to the server to verify that instance of Tomcat is available.

I've solve this problem including an aditional HTTP connector redirecting to HTTPS in server.xml.

<Connector connectionTimeout="20000" port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
    redirectPort="443"/>

<Connector SSLEnabled="true" asyncTimeout="10000000" clientAuth="false" 
    connectionTimeout="10000000" keepAliveTimeout="10000000" 
    keystoreFile="/opt/config/selfsigned.p12" keystorePass="changeit" 
    keystoreType="PKCS12" maxThreads="200" port="443"
    protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" scheme="https"
    secure="true" sslProtocol="TLS"/>

With this change my tomcat in Eclipse starts properly showing Debugging state.

Answer 3

I got this problem, it seems that my tomcat version was buggy (tomcat 7.0.23) switch your tomcat version to another (i.e tomcat 7.0.14) it works for me.

good luck

Answer 4

This could happen if two servlets have been mapped to the same request URL, Tomcat will start up fine but eclipse won't be able to generate the correct web.xml file and therefore won't be able to publish the webApp. Check your servlet mapping @WebServlet("\TheURLThatShouldInvokeThisServlet") make sure two servlets dont have the same "TheURLThatShouldInvokeThisServlet".

(putting it for the record!)

Answer 5

I had this issue, it seems that the Eclipse calls the application url after start up to make sure it is running.

A proxy client (pshione) had changed the system proxy so the eclipse could not call the start page and thinks that the application is not starting yet!!

I removed the proxy and it works fine now!

Edited:

This can also happen when you start your tomcat with SSL, but the ssl certification is not valid. When you make a call to and invalid SSL certification site, some browser confirm if you want to go one or not, but eclipse can not connect to your invalid ssl site! I suggest test your site with normal http instead of https.

Answer 6

I've found the answer (just after posting here which, ironically, seems to be how to find answer's to one's own question.)

The answer was that the port was being used by another process. I should've known but upgraded several different packages will do this. But onto the symptoms:

• Tomcat starts successfully. Able to hit the application before timeout.
• Eclipse looks like it's unable to determine whether the server has started or stopped.

HTTP is currently running under the default of 8080. Unfortunately, my data store was listening at 8080 (my guess as I'm not particularly sure what it does with the port except that it's allocated for jmx). I'm guessing that Eclipse is unable to detect Tomcat at 8080.