Spring dispatcher servlet cannot find index.html . No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [] in DispatcherServlet

Question

I've been trying to get a simple spring mvc webapp working. I've more or less followed this tutorial: http://www.codejava.net/frameworks/spring/spring-mvc-beginner-tutorial-with-spring-tool-suite-ide

Please note that im using spring 3.2.5.RELEASE. Everything is working fine except when the controller returns "index", the dispatcher servlet maps to "/websitebasetest/WEB-INF/views/index.html" which is not found apparently even though there is a file with that name in "WEB-INF/views".

The controller is called which is great! But afterwards there seems to be an issue finding the related view which is weird because the log suggests that the view resolver found the appropriate view in "/websitebasetest/WEB-INF/views/index.html"(see below).

My question is, why is it not finding the view(displays 404 instead) and how do I get it to work?

Here is information you may ask for:

Project structure: project-structure.png .

First half of pom.xml (I can post the rest upon request) :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.tenacious</groupId>
<artifactId>websitebasetest</artifactId>
<name>websitebasetest</name>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<version>1.0.0-BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>

<properties>
    <java-version>1.6</java-version>
    <org.springframework-version>3.2.5.RELEASE</org.springframework-version>
    <org.aspectj-version>1.6.10</org.aspectj-version>
    <org.slf4j-version>1.6.6</org.slf4j-version>
</properties>

<dependencies>
    <!-- Spring core dependency-->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <!-- Exclude Commons Logging in favor of SLF4j -->
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
             </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Spring MVC dependency-->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
    </dependency>

root-context.xml:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

<!-- Root Context: defines shared resources visible to all other web components -->
</beans>    

servlet-context.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

<!-- DispatcherServlet Context: defines this servlet's request-processing infrastructure -->

<!-- Enables the Spring MVC @Controller programming model -->
<annotation-driven />

<!-- Handles HTTP GET requests for "/css/**" and "/js/**" by efficiently serving up 
     static resources in the ${webappRoot}/css and the ${webappRoot}/js directories respectively -->
<resources mapping="/css/**" location="/WEB-INF/css" />
<resources mapping="/js/**" location="/WEB-INF/js" />

<!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by @Controllers to .html resources in the /WEB-INF/views directory -->
<beans:bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <beans:property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
    <beans:property name="suffix" value=".html" />
</beans:bean>

<context:component-scan base-package="com.tenacious.websitebasetest" />

</beans:beans>

web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><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">

<!-- The definition of the Root Spring Container shared by all Servlets and Filters -->
<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/spring/root-context.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<!-- Creates the Spring Container shared by all Servlets and Filters -->
<listener>
    <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>

<!-- Processes application requests -->
<servlet>
    <servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/spring/appServlet/servlet-context.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

HomeController.java:

package com.tenacious.websitebasetest;

import java.util.Locale;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;

/**
 * Handles requests for the application "home" page.
 */
@Controller
public class HomeController 
{   
    private static final Logger logger =     LoggerFactory.getLogger(HomeController.class);

    /**
     * Simply selects the home view to render by returning its name.
     */
    @RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String index(Locale locale, Model model) 
    {
        logger.info("Hello world!");

        return "index";
    }
}

index.html:

<html>
<head>
    <title>Home</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello world!</h1>
</body>
</html>

URL I am trying to reach: localhost:8080/websitebasetest/

console log:

Aug 14, 2016 2:28:49 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 690 ms
INFO : org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader - Root WebApplicationContext: initialization started
INFO : org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext - Refreshing Root WebApplicationContext: startup date [Sun Aug 14 14:28:50 EDT 2016]; root of context hierarchy
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader - Loading XML bean definitions from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/spring/root-context.xml]
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Pre-instantiating singletons in org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@5792f62e: defining beans []; root of factory hierarchy
INFO : org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader - Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 199 ms
INFO : org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet - FrameworkServlet 'appServlet': initialization started
INFO : org.springframework.web.context.support.XmlWebApplicationContext - Refreshing WebApplicationContext for namespace 'appServlet-servlet': startup date [Sun Aug 14 14:28:50 EDT 2016]; parent: Root WebApplicationContext
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader - Loading XML bean definitions from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/spring/appServlet/servlet-context.xml]
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor - JSR-330 'javax.inject.Inject' annotation found and supported for autowiring
INFO : org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory - Pre-instantiating singletons in org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@67b7829a: defining beans [mvcContentNegotiationManager,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerMapping#0,org.springframework.format.support.FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.MappedInterceptor#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.ResponseStatusExceptionResolver#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.HttpRequestHandlerAdapter,org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.SimpleControllerHandlerAdapter,org.springframework.web.servlet.resource.ResourceHttpRequestHandler#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping#0,org.springframework.web.servlet.resource.ResourceHttpRequestHandler#1,org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping#1,org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver#0,homeController,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalConfigurationAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalAutowiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalRequiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.internalCommonAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.context.annotation.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.importAwareProcessor]; parent: org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@5792f62e
INFO : org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerMapping - Mapped "{[/],methods=[GET],params=[],headers=[],consumes=[],produces=[],custom=[]}" onto public java.lang.String com.tenacious.websitebasetest.HomeController.index(java.util.Locale,org.springframework.ui.Model)
INFO : org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping - Mapped   URL path [/css/**] onto handler 'org.springframework.web.servlet.resource.ResourceHttpRequestHandler#0'
INFO : org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping - Mapped URL path [/js/**] onto handler 'org.springframework.web.servlet.resource.ResourceHttpRequestHandler#1'
INFO : org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet - FrameworkServlet 'appServlet': initialization completed in 523 ms
Aug 14, 2016 2:28:51 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 1665 ms
INFO : com.tenacious.websitebasetest.HomeController - Hello world!
WARN : org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound - No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/websitebasetest/WEB-INF/views/index.html] in     DispatcherServlet with name 'appServlet'

404 page:

HTTP Status 404 -

type Status report

message

description The requested resource is not available.

Pivotal tc Runtime 3.1.2.RELEASE/8.0.26.B.RELEASE

Any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

Answer 1

I just ran your entire code in the my local machine just to see if my way is correct or not. The problem is in your web.xml

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Instead of this, It should be

    <servlet-mapping>
           <servlet-name>appServlet</servlet-name>
           <url-pattern>*.html</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

This way your servlet can handle anything with the .html extension.

BTW i ran it in jetty server

Answer 2

I have found a solution.

In servlet context i added:

<resources mapping="/views/**" location="/WEB-INF/views/" />

and edited this part:

<!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by @Controllers to .html resources in the /WEB-INF/webcontent/views directory -->
<beans:bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <beans:property name="prefix" value="/views/" />
    <beans:property name="suffix" value=".html" />
</beans:bean>

The view resolver receives "index" from the controller which then changes it to "/views/index.html". Since I added a resource mapping for anything starting with "/views/**" to map to "/WEB-INF/views/" it now finds the view correctly xD.

It seems that being mapped to "/websitebasetest/WEB-INF/views/index.html" (which is what it was doing before) was incorrect as it could not locate the file.

Special thanks to people that helped along the way!!