Tomcat startup logs - SEVERE: Error filterStart how to get a stack trace?

Question

When I start Tomcat I get the following error:

Jun 10, 2010 5:17:25 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
SEVERE: Error filterStart
Jun 10, 2010 5:17:25 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
SEVERE: Context [/mywebapplication] startup failed due to previous errors

It seems odd that the logs for Tomcat would not include a stack trace. Does somebody have a suggestion for how to increase the logging in Tomcat to get stack traces for errors like this?

Answer 1

Check the localhost_yyyy_mm_dd.log logs that Tomcat creates, these typically store that type of info. I wouldn't expect the full stacktrace to be dumped to standard out.

Answer 2

Setting up log4j logging for Tomcat is pretty simple. The following is quoted from http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/logging.html :

1. Create a file called log4j.properties with the following content and save it into common/classes.

             log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, R 
             log4j.appender.R=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender 
             log4j.appender.R.File=${catalina.home}/logs/tomcat.log 
             log4j.appender.R.MaxFileSize=10MB 
             log4j.appender.R.MaxBackupIndex=10 
             log4j.appender.R.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout 
             log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%p %t %c - %m%n
   

2. Download Log4J (v1.2 or later) and place the log4j jar in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.

3. Download Commons Logging and place the commons-logging-x.y.z.jar (not commons-logging-api-x.y.z.jar) in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib with the log4j jar.
4. Start Tomcat

You might also want to have a look at http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ/Logging