How to solve exception [Error loading application.groovy due to [java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException]: 0] when deploying war?

Question

How to solve exception occurred on war deployment to production mode

Development in Grails 3.1.8, Java 8

Deployment on Linux CentOS 7 and Tomcat 8.5.9 server.

Please find the error log from catalina.out

18-Mar-2018 20:29:21.953 SEVERE [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal ContainerBase.addChild: start:
     org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/application]]
            at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:153)
            at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:725)
            at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:701)
            at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:717)        
            at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
            at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
    Caused by: org.grails.core.exceptions.GrailsConfigurationException: Error loading application.groovy due to [java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException]: 0
            at org.grails.core.cfg.GroovyConfigPropertySourceLoader.load(GroovyConfigPropertySourceLoader.groovy:72)
            at org.grails.core.cfg.GroovyConfigPropertySourceLoader.load(GroovyConfigPropertySourceLoader.groovy:45)
            at org.springframework.boot.env.PropertySourcesLoader.load(PropertySourcesLoader.java:127)
            at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener$Loader.loadIntoGroup(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:462)
            at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener$Loader.load(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:449)    
            at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:307)
            at grails.boot.GrailsApp.run(GrailsApp.groovy:55)
            at org.springframework.boot.context.web.SpringBootServletInitializer.run(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:149)
            at org.grails.boot.context.web.GrailsAppServletInitializer.createRootApplicationContext(GrailsAppServletInitializer.groovy:57)
            at org.springframework.boot.context.web.SpringBootServletInitializer.onStartup(SpringBootServletInitializer.java:85)
            at org.springframework.web.SpringServletContainerInitializer.onStartup(SpringServletContainerInitializer.java:169)
            at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5292)
            at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:147)
            ... 10 more
    Caused by: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0
            at sun.font.CompositeFont.getSlotFont(CompositeFont.java:333)
            at sun.font.CompositeGlyphMapper.initMapper(CompositeGlyphMapper.java:81)
            at sun.font.CompositeGlyphMapper.<init>(CompositeGlyphMapper.java:62)
            at sun.font.CompositeFont.getMapper(CompositeFont.java:391)
            at sun.font.CompositeFont.canDisplay(CompositeFont.java:417)
            at java.awt.Font.canDisplay(Font.java:1980)
            at com.octo.captcha.component.image.fontgenerator.RandomFontGenerator.checkFontCanDisplayCharacters(RandomFontGenerator.java:207)
            at com.octo.captcha.component.image.fontgenerator.RandomFontGenerator.cleanFontList(RandomFontGenerator.java:163)
            at com.octo.captcha.component.image.fontgenerator.RandomFontGenerator.initializeFonts(RandomFontGenerator.java:79)
            at com.octo.captcha.component.image.fontgenerator.RandomFontGenerator.<init>(RandomFontGenerator.java:69)        
            at org.grails.core.cfg.GroovyConfigPropertySourceLoader.load(GroovyConfigPropertySourceLoader.groovy:61)
            ... 34 more

Answer 1

Caused by: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0
  at sun.font.CompositeFont.getSlotFont(CompositeFont.java:333)

This looks like some fonts are missing, or maybe none is installed. Compare the output of fc-command between your dev environment and your prod. This command might not be here by default and you need to install it too. This post might help, as we don't know which distro you are running.