What does "is waiting for an appropriate deployer" mean in JBoss?

Question

I'm trying to deploy a war file in JBoss 4.2.2GA. A previous version was deployed without issue, but now I see:

Deployment of package: file:....war is waiting for an appropriate deployer.

followed by a list of a bajillion Packages waiting for a deployer along with their deployment status.

What do these messages mean? Before I start trying to diagnose the problem, I would like to first understand what it is that JBoss is trying to tell me. Googling did not reveal any relevant documentation. (The Javadoc for the DeploymentState enumeration lists all of the possible deployment states, and has absolutely nothing further to say about any of them.)

Answer 1

It's telling you that it has no deployer components that know how to deploy the file that you gave it. and so it's waiting until a deployer component becomes available.

If you deployed a .war file and you're getting this message, and it used to work, then something is broken in your jboss installation. The deployer for .war files is the JBossWeb deployer.

Can something have modified your installation? Can it be re-created from the distribution?

Oh, and telling us which JBoss version you're using would help.