[FIXED] My class is not a servlet error

Issue

I have the following servlet code

public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response){

    Backup bup = new Backup();
    bup.doBackup();

    response.setContentType("text/html");
    PrintWriter out;
    try {
        out = response.getWriter();

    out.println("You backed up your data - well hopefully");
    out.flush();
    out.close();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

}

And the following stack trace

javax.servlet.ServletException: Class view.BackupServlet is not a Servlet org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102) org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:293) org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:849) org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583) org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:454) java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

root cause

java.lang.ClassCastException: view.BackupServlet cannot be cast to javax.servlet.Servlet org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102) org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:293) org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:849) org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583) org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:454) java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

and the web.xml is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app id="WebApp_ID" version="2.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-<br>app_2_4.xsd">
<display-name>Backup</display-name>
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.jsp</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
  <servlet>
    <description>BackupServlet</description>
    <display-name>BackupServlet</display-name>
    <servlet-name>BackupServlet</servlet-name><br>
    <servlet-class>view.BackupServlet</servlet-class>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>BackupServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/BackupServlet</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>`

Solution

You haven't shown your class declaration - my guess is that your class doesn't extend Servlet or HttpServlet.

If it does, then check how many different servlet.jar files you have in your deployment - it could be that it's being loaded by two different classloaders.

Answered By - Jon Skeet