![why](/static/img/x1mno0Ukhc-600.jpeg)
I run into a nasty issue the other day with “alike” directories in my web application.
That is, I had a copy of a “WEB-INF” directory called “WEB-INF–“. While my web application did not bother with copy of the WEB-INF directory, Tomcat threw all kinds of errors in the catalina.out log file. Also, I had some issues with Tomcat restarting and strange Java error messages, like:
Java.lang.NullPointerException com.nary.util.Localization.convertCharSetToCharEncoding(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.cfEngine.getDefaultEncoding(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.cfFormData.(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.cfFormData.(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.variableStore.(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.cfSession.(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.cfEngine.service(Unknown Source) com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.cfServlet.service(Unknown Source) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
After browsing the log files, I saw that Tomcat tried to read the directory and threw a bunch of critical errors while reading those copied directories. I guess, Tomcat got totally confused and tried to overload libraries.
Lesson learned; Never have any copy of the WEB-INF folder within the web application again.