Faces Servlet threw exception java.lang.StackOverflowError

Question

Ok, I've run across my first StackOverflowError since joining this site, I figured this is a must post :-). My environment is Seam 2.0.1.GA, JBoss 4.2.2.GA and I'm using JSF. I am in the process of converting from a facelets view to JSP to take advantage of some existing JSP tags used on our existing site. I changed the faces-config.xml and the web.xml configuration files and started to receive the following error when trying to render a jsp page. Anyone have any thoughts?

2008-09-17 09:45:17,537 DEBUG [org.jboss.seam.contexts.FacesLifecycle] Begin JSF request for /form_home.jsp 2008-09-17 09:45:17,587 ERROR [org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[jboss.web].[localhost].[/].[Faces Servlet]] Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception java.lang.StackOverflowError at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationHttpRequest.getAttribute(ApplicationHttpRequest.java:210) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationHttpRequest.getAttribute(ApplicationHttpRequest.java:222) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationHttpRequest.getAttribute(ApplicationHttpRequest.java:222) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationHttpRequest.getAttribute(ApplicationHttpRequest.java:222) ...

My faces-config.xml file is now empty with no FaceletsViewHandler:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config version="1.2" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
 xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee  
   http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_1_2.xsd"&gt;

</faces-config>

And my Web.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<web-app version="2.5" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
  http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"&gt;
 <!-- Ajax4jsf -->
 <context-param>
  <param-name>org.richfaces.SKIN</param-name>
  <param-value>blueSky</param-value>
 </context-param>
  <!-- Seam -->
 <listener>
  <listener-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamListener</listener-class>
 </listener>


 <filter>
  <filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
  <filter-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter</filter-class>
 </filter>

 <filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
  <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern>
 </filter-mapping>

 <servlet>
    <servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
     <servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamResourceServlet
     </servlet-class>
 </servlet>
 <servlet-mapping>
   <servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/seam/resource/*</url-pattern>
 </servlet-mapping>
 <!-- Seam end --> 

 <!-- JSF -->
 <context-param>
        <param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
        <param-value>.jsp</param-value>
 </context-param>

 <servlet>
    <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
 </servlet>
 <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern> 
 </servlet-mapping>

Answer 1

Stack overflows in java are almost always caused by infinite recursion / method calls. In your case given the stack trace, it appears 'getAttribute()' is being called repeatedly until crash. While I'm not intimately familiar with the particular environments you are using, I would suggest checking your .jsp code for any of this type of behaviour (for example two methods that call each other)

Answer 2

I was able to figure out this problem. Apparently you can not configure web.xml to have the same param-value of .jsp for Javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX as the Faces Servlet url-pattern (*.jsp). If you change your url-pattern to .jspx or to /whateverdirnameyouwant/ the application starts up with no stack overflow errors. (note: the key is that DEFAULT_SUFFIX and Faces Servlet url-pattern cannot be the same regardless of what they are.) Hope this helps anyone else that experiences this specific problem.

Answer 3

cheers Joe ........... ur a gem!