servlets - @WebServlet fails in Netbeans 11.0 with java.lang.RuntimeException: com.example.NewServlet.<init>(NewServlet.java:1)

Question

Some kind of nightmare - can not launch primitive servlet on Apache Tomcat 9.0.22 (or Glassfish 5.0.1) and Apache NetBeans IDE 11.0 (Build incubator-netbeans-release-404-on-20190319) by using servlet annotations.. Using JDK 1.8u221. Here is the code:

@WebServlet(name = "NewServlet", urlPatterns = {"/meow"})
public class NewServlet extends HttpServlet {

    protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        response.getWriter().println("test");
    }
}

And web.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<web-app 
    xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
    version="3.1">

</web-app>

The root cause (note the line number, it's always 1!):

java.lang.RuntimeException: 
    com.example.NewServlet.<init>(NewServlet.java:1)
    java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
    java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
    java.base/java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:490)
    java.base/java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:584)
    org.apache.openejb.core.WebContext.newWeakableInstance(WebContext.java:147)
    org.apache.openejb.core.WebContext.newInstance(WebContext.java:181)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.JavaeeInstanceManager.newInstance(JavaeeInstanceManager.java:78)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.JavaeeInstanceManager.newInstance(JavaeeInstanceManager.java:124)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.JavaeeInstanceManager.newInstance(JavaeeInstanceManager.java:119)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBValve.invoke(OpenEJBValve.java:45)
    org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:490)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:92)
    org.apache.tomee.catalina.OpenEJBSecurityListener$RequestCapturer.invoke(OpenEJBSecurityListener.java:97)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:678)
    org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:343)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:408)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:66)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:836)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1839)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
    java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
    java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)

The goal is to declare servlets only by annotations, like @WebServlet(name = "NewServlet", urlPatterns = {"/meow"}).

Tested on NetBeans 8.2 with JDK1.8u221 - all works as expected. I suspect the problem is in Apache NetBeans 11, even if project JDK is set to 8 (also source/binary format).

Answer 1

I encountered this problem in Netbeans 12.0 today using OpenJDK 14. It turns out the problem was resolved by installing the nb-javac plugin.