Weblogic 10 and Struts 2.x problem - Javassist

Question

Please help with this issue, I'm going mad...

I'm trying to make a client-server web application using Weblogic 10 as an application server and IIS as a webserver (corporate constraints), with EJB 3 and Struts 2. I am however having strage problems which I cannot solve.

Using Struts 2.2 I get the following stack trace while starting the server:

<12-ott-2010 16.02.21 CEST> <Error> <HTTP> <BEA-101165> <Could not load user def
ined filter in web.xml: org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher.
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException - Class: com.opensymphony.xwork2.inj
ect.ContainerImpl$MethodInjector
File: ContainerImpl.java
Method: inject
Line: 295 - com/opensymphony/xwork2/inject/ContainerImpl.java:295:-1
        at org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.Dispatcher.init(Dispatcher.java:428)
        at org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher.init(FilterDispatcher.
java:190)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterManager$FilterInitAction.run(FilterMa
nager.java:320)
        at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(Authenticate
dSubject.java:321)
        at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(Unknown Source)
        Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace
java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
[...]
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Javassist library is missing in classpath! P
lease add missed dependency!
        at ognl.OgnlRuntime.<clinit>(OgnlRuntime.java:165)

[...]

However, the Javassist package is clearly visible in the web classpath (/WEB-INF/lib direcotry) among all the other Struts-related libraries, I can also browse its packages and classes. I also put it in the CLASSPATH library and in Weblogic initializaion parameters but nothing works. I don't know what to think. Is this a Struts 2/Weblogic integration bug?

Even weirder is the fact that initially I managed to make Struts 2 work. Then for some reason (I don't really know what for) it stopped and I can't get rid of that error.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Often solutions come when all hope is lost. Apparently all I had to do was moving all Struts libraries (including Javassist) to the /lib directory of the parent EAR project. This sounds weird to me, but it works and I'm sticking with the solution.

I'm not very familiar with Weblogic and Enterprise apps in general, so it didn't came to mind readily that the server treats the EAR as the base context and not the contained WAR.