HTTP Status 500 – Internal Server Error (Java, Eclipse, Servlets, Tomcat)

Question

I was following a couple of Servlets tuts for Java and found the same problem over and over again. I can serve a single page in Tomcat 8.5.47, but when I try to bind a Servlet into a form action, for example, I get the following error when it gets executed: Message Error instantiating servlet class [xxx.xxx.SearchServlet]

It's a 'Dynamic Web Project'. I checked the project properties and the section Source src points to Deploy Path WEB-INF/classes. Also all directories are included in Build Path.

Here are the main files:

src/xxx.xxx/SearchServlet.java

package xxx.xxx;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class SearchServlet extends HttpServlet {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    public void service(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws IOException {

        String str = req.getParameter("str_search");

        PrintWriter out = res.getWriter();

        out.println(str);

    }

}

WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="3.1">
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>search</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>SearchServlet</servlet-class>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>search</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/search</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

Here's the full report:

HTTP Status 500 – Internal Server Error

Type Exception Report

Message Error instantiating servlet class [SearchServlet]

Description The server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request.

Exception

javax.servlet.ServletException: Error instantiating servlet class [SearchServlet]
    org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:528)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:81)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:678)
    org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:343)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:798)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:66)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:810)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1500)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Root Cause

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: SearchServlet
    org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1360)
    org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1182)
    org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:528)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:81)
    org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:678)
    org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:343)
    org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:798)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:66)
    org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:810)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1500)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
    java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
    org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the server logs.

Apache Tomcat/8.5.47

I was wondering if this has something to do with Eclipse Installation to permissions, or maybe it's about the project structure? Anyone has any tip? Maybe I should look for a container image or something to try to build on it? Thanks.

Answer 1

Just add the full qualified name of the class in the <servlet-class> tag.

Example:

<servlet-class>com.stack.SearchServlet</servlet-class>

Or if you prefer:

package com.stack;    

import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;    

/**
 * Servlet implementation class MyServlet
 */
@WebServlet("/MyServlet")
public class MyServlet extends HttpServlet {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    /**
     * @see HttpServlet#HttpServlet()
     */
    public MyServlet() {
        super();
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub
    }    

    /**
     * @see HttpServlet#doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
     */
    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        response.getWriter().append("Served at: ").append(request.getContextPath());
    }    

    /**
     * @see HttpServlet#doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
     */
    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        doGet(request, response);
    }    

}