[FIXED] spring boot application deployment on weblogic throws 404 error

Issue

I have done below configurations and tried almost all solutions found but nothing helped. When i am deploying spring boot app in war package. no error got logged in weblogic log but the application throwing 404 error.

web.xml

<listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>
    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>classpath:root-context.xml</param-value>
    </context-param>
    <context-param>  
    <param-name>spring.profiles.active</param-name>  
    <param-value>dev</param-value>  
    </context-param>  
    <context-param>  
    <param-name>spring.profiles.default</param-name>  
    <param-value>dev</param-value>  
</context-param>
<context-param>  
    <param-name>spring.liveBeansView.mbeanDomain</param-name>  
    <param-value>dev</param-value>  
</context-param>  

weblogic.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wls:weblogic-web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:wls="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90 http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/weblogic-web-app.xsd">
    <wls:weblogic-version>12.1.2.0.0</wls:weblogic-version>
    <wls:context-root>/services/userModule/</wls:context-root>
    <wls:container-descriptor>
        <wls:prefer-application-packages>
            <wls:package-name>com.fasterxml</wls:package-name>
            <wls:package-name>org.slf4j</wls:package-name>
            <wls:package-name>org.springframework.*</wls:package-name>
        </wls:prefer-application-packages>
    </wls:container-descriptor>
</wls:weblogic-web-app>

application.properties

spring.profiles.default=default
spring.profiles.active=default
spring.liveBeansView.mbeanDomain=default

cms.config.monitor.dir=/server/location/application/artifacts
application.messages.file.name=application-messages
application.config.file.name=application-config

root-context.xml

it contains application specific configurations.

ApplicationBegin.java

@SpringBootApplication(exclude = {DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class, JpaRepositoriesAutoConfiguration.class}) 
public class ApplicationBegin extends SpringBootServletInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
        return application.sources(ApplicationBegin.class);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args){
        SpringApplication.run(ApplicationBegin.class, args);

    }

Cannot exclude tomcat server from pom.xml as it is failing the compilation. is there a way to set tomcat as provided while using spring boot starter web? pom.xml

<dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
                </exclusion>

                <!-- THIS WILL BE EXCLUDE ONLY FOR WEBLOGIC DEPLOYMENT -->
                <!--  <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
                </exclusion>  -->
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>

The problem is the application runs fine with embedded tomcat but it is not working even not throwing any error when deploying on weblogic. Where should i look?

Solution

After trying the solutions i found from different people , it couldn't solve my issue and somehow i have solved it now. all the similar issues i have seen on this topic and the soultions, i finally understood no answer was actually a solution because in most of the cases the issue happens because of wrong configuration that weblogic dosen't understand. the worst part being it doesn't even throw error. In my case other than application.properties file and a root-context.xml, i explicitly specified web.xml file in /WEB-INF location and defined context-config location there. As soon as i removed the web.xml and refactored/filtered the project dependencies from top to bottom , it resolved the issue. and also then i realized many handy solutions on the web for this issue wouldn't even be required if your configuration is correct. for an example, configuring a jpavendor won't require if you use spring boot jpa starter correctly. so.. if you ever face this kind of deployment issue on weblogic , you may follow below steps -

1. Only deploy a bareminimum part of application and make it workable on weblogic
2. then add your critical dependencies / configurations and deploy them one by one on weblogic and check if it is working
3. you should always run your boot application to other local server first for resolving major configuration issues ..tomcat is good.

Answered By - Reese
Answer Checked By - Marilyn (JavaFixing Volunteer)