Deploying an identical war file with a different name causes the old one to stop?

Question

We have an Apache tomcat server that runs a current web service. We were trying to deploy a second version (with a few tweaks) however when we copy the war file over, the first one stops working. Why??

Answer 1

Is the Context root different in the war files. If not I believe the server will not validate the url correctly.

Answer 2

If your application writes to a database, and another copy of it is competing for the same data in the same database, this can result in such behaviour. Does your application write to a "fixed" database? If so, you will need to create another database, or change the way the application deals with the database.

Answer 3

Does your webapp contain context.xml configuration for Tomcat? If the two webapps use the same docbase then they are accessing the same folder.