Hi! I am trying to deploy apps made with vaadin 24.9 and JDK 21 to Tomcat 10.1 running on a laptop, but nothing seems to work. All the apps run nicely in IntelliJ, but I get the same error message from Tomcat when I try to start the app packaged as a war-file. What am I doing wrong here?
I have followed the instructions shown here: https://foojay.io/today/how-to-deploy-a-vaadin-application-as-a-war-on-tomcat-11/,. The war file is packaged with mvn clean package -Pproduction, the war file moved to webapps folder, changed owner to tomcat:tomcat, and the file is unzipped by Tomcat. The app name appears in the Manager. When I try to start the app in the Manager, nothing happens. The localhost log from tomcat shows this:
05-Oct-2025 07:42:50.175 INFO [http-nio-8080-exec-95] org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext.log 1 Spring WebApplicationInitializers detected on classpath
05-Oct-2025 07:42:50.180 SEVERE [http-nio-8080-exec-95] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class [com.vaadin.flow.server.startup.ServletContextListeners]
java.lang.IllegalStateException: The application Lookup instance is not found in VaadinContext. The instance is supposed to be created by a ServletContainerInitializer. Issues known to cause this problem are:
- A Spring Boot application deployed as a war-file but the main application class does not extend SpringBootServletInitializer
- An embedded server that is not set up to execute ServletContainerInitializers
- Unit tests which do not properly set up the context for the test
at com.vaadin.flow.server.startup.ApplicationConfiguration.lambda$get$0(ApplicationConfiguration.java:53)
at com.vaadin.flow.server.VaadinServletContext.getAttribute(VaadinServletContext.java:73)
at com.vaadin.flow.server.startup.ApplicationConfiguration.get(ApplicationConfiguration.java:47)
at com.vaadin.flow.server.startup.ServletDeployer.contextInitialized(ServletDeployer.java:152)
at com.vaadin.flow.server.startup.ServletContextListeners.contextInitialized(ServletContextListeners.java:44)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4046)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:4474)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:164)
at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.start(ManagerServlet.java:1289)
at org.apache.catalina.manager.HTMLManagerServlet.start(HTMLManagerServlet.java:644)
at org.apache.catalina.manager.HTMLManagerServlet.doPost(HTMLManagerServlet.java:190)
at jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:590)
at jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:658)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:195)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:140)
at org.apache.catalina.filters.CsrfPreventionFilter.doFilter(CsrfPreventionFilter.java:430)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:164)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:140)
at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:51)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:164)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:140)
at org.apache.catalina.filters.HttpHeaderSecurityFilter.doFilter(HttpHeaderSecurityFilter.java:129)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:164)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:140)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:167)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:90)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:598)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.RequestFilterValve.process(RequestFilterValve.java:354)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve.invoke(RemoteAddrValve.java:54)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:93)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:666)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:74)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:344)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:398)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:63)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:903)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1776)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:52)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:975)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:493)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:63)
at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:840)
It claims that I haven’t extended SpringBootServletInitializer, but I mean I have, in Application.class:
package com.example;
import com.vaadin.flow.component.page.AppShellConfigurator;
import com.vaadin.flow.theme.Theme;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.builder.SpringApplicationBuilder;
import org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.SpringBootServletInitializer;
@SpringBootApplication
@Theme("default")
public class Application extends SpringBootServletInitializer implements AppShellConfigurator {
@Override
protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
return application.sources(Application.class);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
}
}
The same thing happens with vaadin apps created with Vaadin starter in IntelliJ.
The pom file is as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<!-- Project from https://start.vaadin.com/0e1afa6f-40c8-42c9-93d6-178caed93bdd -->
<groupId>com.example</groupId>
<artifactId>app</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<properties>
<java.version>21</java.version>
<vaadin.version>24.9.2</vaadin.version>
</properties>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>3.5.6</version>
<relativePath/>
</parent>
<dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<artifactId>vaadin-bom</artifactId>
<version>${vaadin.version}</version>
<type>pom</type>
<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<!-- Replace artifactId with vaadin-core to use only free components -->
<artifactId>vaadin</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<artifactId>vaadin-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
<artifactId>h2</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<defaultGoal>spring-boot:run</defaultGoal>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<artifactId>vaadin-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>${vaadin.version}</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>prepare-frontend</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>production</id>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<!-- Exclude development dependencies from production -->
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<artifactId>vaadin-core</artifactId>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<artifactId>vaadin-dev</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
<artifactId>vaadin-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>${vaadin.version}</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>build-frontend</goal>
</goals>
<phase>compile</phase>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</profile>
</profiles>
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>vaadin-directory</id>
<url>https://maven.vaadin.com/vaadin-addons</url>
</repository>
<repository>
<id>vaadin-prereleases</id>
<url>https://maven.vaadin.com/vaadin-prereleases</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
<pluginRepositories>
<pluginRepository>
<id>vaadin-prereleases</id>
<url>https://maven.vaadin.com/vaadin-prereleases</url>
</pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>
</project>
I have tried removing the AppShellConfigurator implementation, but it doesn’t help.