[Development]

I have a large project that is very unreliably deployed to Tomcat 5. Sometimes I can deploy the project and all the necessary classes (and the contents of WebRoot) are deployed correctly, but other times when i attempt to do a complete undeploy/redeploy the result is that a vast number of files are missed.

For instance when I last attempted a new, clean deployment, about half of my class files were not put into WEB-INF/classes (this is really strange, it literally did some packages and not others!) and none of the other files in my WebRoot folder (html/jsp/properties etc) were deployed.

Is this a common bug? I’m using the following versions:
Eclipse Platform
Version: 3.0.0
Build id: 200406251208

MyEclipse
Version: 3.8.3
Build id: 200412061200-3.8.3

Others in my office have the same problem (sporadically) and whilst using 3.8.2 it also used to happen.

[Riyad Kalla]

Are you deploying to a running Tomcat instance? If so, then most likely the deployment is simply failing. Check the log file for exceptions to see if it might tip us off where it is getting angry and giving up:
(workspace dir)\.metadata\.log

If you are deploying to a running instance of Tomcat on Windows, the culprit is probably read locks on the files.

[holzi69]

I have the same problem. I have already tried to deploy while the tomcat is stopped but it does not work. It also looks like that it does not deploy new files and it sometimes doesn’t update old versions of the .class files. But the log file does not show any errors even if I delete the deployed directory and create a new one.

Eclipse Version 3.0.2
myeclipse Version 3.8.4+QF2

[holzi69]

It also seems to me as eclipse would lock the files so it’s not possible to redeploy.

[Riyad Kalla]

holzi,
We’ve never seen the behavior you are describing, which means there is some little detail you haven’t disclosed that could make the difference between working and busted… are you running any custom ant Scripts? Is this a custom layout or are you using a standard Web Project layout? What is your WebRoot set to? What is your Output dir set to? What is your directory structure of your project? (It’s not a Java Project is it?)

[holzi69]

I haven’t set any custom settings for this project. I use a standard web project layout. I’m working with hibernate and jsf and I have no other plugins installed except myeclipse.

I have configured the settings for using the tomcat 5.

I have my source files in my webproject/src folder and eclipse should copy all .class files into webproject/webroot/web-inf/classes/ folder as it is set as standard. It sometimes does it, and sometimes it “forgets” whole .java files(but I think it forgets always the same files but I’m not sure).

So I tried to build the project with the “build project” function because it seems to me that the “build automatically” function doesn’t work.

The problem that you can’t redeploy because a program has locked one of the files in the folder of your web application is also caused by eclipse because if I restart eclipse I’m able to redeploy otherwise eclipse sometimes locks one of the .jar files.(xml-apis.jar)

Those problems are annoying by developying applications and it has taken me several hours to find these problems. Myeclipse is a really good plugin but I nearly spend more time by troubleshooting than by developing.

[Riyad Kalla]

I have my source files in my webproject/src folder and eclipse should copy all .class files into webproject/webroot/web-inf/classes/ folder as it is set as standard.

Correct, so far everything sounds right…

It sometimes does it, and sometimes it “forgets” whole .java files(but I think it forgets always the same files but I’m not sure).

This is very strange, are you running any Ant scripts or XDoclet scripts to generate these Java files? The build cycle that you are having a problem with is straight Eclipse at this point (Java files -> compiled -> Output dir).

The problem that you can’t redeploy because a program has locked one of the files in the folder of your web application is also caused by eclipse because if I restart eclipse I’m able to redeploy otherwise eclipse sometimes locks one of the .jar files.(xml-apis.jar)

Your app server is the one locking the JARs which is why the redeploy fails. Eclipse also can sometimes lock a JAR file, but those are only the files IN your project, not the copies that are sent out to the app server.

Myeclipse is a really good plugin but I nearly spend more time by troubleshooting than by developing.

Absolutely understandable, you shouldn’t be messing around with these problems, they should “just work”.

I would like you to try a new workspace (File > Switch Workspace > C:\tempworkspace) and then create a new web project and start working with it and see if you run into the same problem. Are things working?

I would also encourage you (with your existing workspace) to try and add the -clean command line argument when starting up MyEclipse as outlined here: http://myeclipseide.com/FAQ+index-myfaq-yes-id_cat-30.html#343

This will help Eclipse rebuild it’s plugin cache incase there are any inconsistencies.

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