Hi everybody.

Today I have installed Tomcat 5.5.9 (I'm not a complete newbie: I have worked with Tomcat 4.1 and 5.0 with no problem).

But now I do have a real problem. Tomcat does not recompile JSPs when I update them at the webapps\ROOT directory. Therefore, it always presents the same web page, even if the corresponding Jsp has been updated.

Even if I shutdown and restart Tomcat, the Jsp is not recompiled. The only way to make Tomcat recompile a JSP is to delete the compiled files in work\Catalina\- directory.

I have checked that this is not a browser cache problem. It is a Tomcat problem since the compiled files don't change even if you update JSPs and restart Tomcat.

I have tried with the preconfigured version of Tomcat 5.5.4 located in http://www.coreservlets.com/Apache-Tomcat-Tutorial/#Preconfigured-Tomcat and I get the same results.

What am I doing wrong? Please help me. I'm desperate and I don't know what else to do.

Thanks in advance,

Vicent Palasi

I did find some info on this and options, but nothing seems to work.

I looked into this one day, and there are several options regarding the JSP compiler in ..\jakarta-tomcat-5.5.x\conf\web.xml, but none seem to have any effect. I even posed this question on Tomcat users mail list, but no help/answer. I first saw the problem in 5.5.7, then upgraded to 5.5.9, same problem.


  <!-- The JSP page compiler and execution servlet, which is the mechanism -->
  <!-- used by Tomcat to support JSP pages. Traditionally, this servlet -->
  <!-- is mapped to the URL pattern "*.jsp". This servlet supports the -->
  <!-- following initialization parameters (default values are in square -->
  <!-- brackets): -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- checkInterval If development is false and checkInterval is -->
  <!-- greater than zero, background compilations are -->
  <!-- enabled. checkInterval is the time in seconds -->
  <!-- between checks to see if a JSP page needs to -->
  <!-- be recompiled. [0] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- modificationTestInterval -->
  <!-- Causes a JSP (and its dependent files) to not -->
  <!-- be checked for modification during the -->
  <!-- specified time interval (in seconds) from the -->
  <!-- last time the JSP was checked for -->
  <!-- modification. A value of 0 will cause the JSP -->
  <!-- to be checked on every access. -->
  <!-- Used in development mode only. [4] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- compiler Which compiler Ant should use to compile JSP -->
  <!-- pages. See the Ant documentation for more -->
  <!-- information. [javac] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- classdebuginfo Should the class file be compiled with -->
  <!-- debugging information? [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- classpath What class path should I use while compiling -->
  <!-- generated servlets? [Created dynamically -->
  <!-- based on the current web application] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- development Is Jasper used in development mode? If true, -->
  <!-- the frequency at which JSPs are checked for -->
  <!-- modification may be specified via the -->
  <!-- modificationTestInterval parameter. [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- enablePooling Determines whether tag handler pooling is -->
  <!-- enabled [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- fork Tell Ant to fork compiles of JSP pages so that -->
  <!-- a separate JVM is used for JSP page compiles -->
  <!-- from the one Tomcat is running in. [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- ieClassId The class-id value to be sent to Internet -->
  <!-- Explorer when using <jsp:plugin> tags. -->
  <!-- [clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- javaEncoding Java file encoding to use for generating java -->
  <!-- source files. [UTF8] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- keepgenerated Should we keep the generated Java source code -->
  <!-- for each page instead of deleting it? [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- mappedfile Should we generate static content with one -->
  <!-- print statement per input line, to ease -->
  <!-- debugging? [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- trimSpaces Should white spaces in template text between -->
  <!-- actions or directives be trimmed? [false] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- suppressSmap Should the generation of SMAP info for JSR45 -->
  <!-- debugging be suppressed? [false] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- dumpSmap Should the SMAP info for JSR45 debugging be -->
  <!-- dumped to a file? [false] -->
  <!-- False if suppressSmap is true -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- genStrAsCharArray Should text strings be generated as char -->
  <!-- arrays, to improve performance in some cases? -->
  <!-- [false] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- errorOnUseBeanInvalidClassAttribute -->
  <!-- Should Jasper issue an error when the value of -->
  <!-- the class attribute in an useBean action is -->
  <!-- not a valid bean class? [true] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- scratchdir What scratch directory should we use when -->
  <!-- compiling JSP pages? [default work directory -->
  <!-- for the current web application] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- xpoweredBy Determines whether X-Powered-By response -->
  <!-- header is added by generated servlet [false] -->
  <!-- -->
  <!-- If you wish to use Jikes to compile JSP pages: -->
  <!-- Please see the "Using Jikes" section of the Jasper-HowTo -->
  <!-- page in the Tomcat documentation. -->

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>jsp</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet</servlet-class>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>development</param-name>
            <param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>modificationTestInterval</param-name>
            <param-value>20</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>fork</param-name>
            <param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>xpoweredBy</param-name>
            <param-value>false</param-value>
        </init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>compiler</param-name>
<param-value>modern</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>compilerSourceVM</param-name>
<param-value>1.5</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>compilerTargetVM</param-name>
<param-value>1.5</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>verbose</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>
        <load-on-startup>3</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>

I am having the same problem. I used the default settings for web.xml, in the conf directory, and it doens't reload my JSPs. I even tried explictly setting the development init-param to true, and no luck. The only difference between my current app and what I have done in the past is that in the past I deployed a war file. Now I am deploying directly to an application directory, without the war file. Any ideas?

Hi everybody.

Today I have installed Tomcat 5.5.9 (I'm not a complete newbie: I have worked with Tomcat 4.1 and 5.0 with no problem).

But now I do have a real problem. Tomcat does not recompile JSPs when I update them at the webapps\ROOT directory. Therefore, it always presents the same web page, even if the corresponding Jsp has been updated.

Even if I shutdown and restart Tomcat, the Jsp is not recompiled. The only way to make Tomcat recompile a JSP is to delete the compiled files in work\Catalina\- directory.

I have checked that this is not a browser cache problem. It is a Tomcat problem since the compiled files don't change even if you update JSPs and restart Tomcat.

I have tried with the preconfigured version of Tomcat 5.5.4 located in http://www.coreservlets.com/Apache-Tomcat-Tutorial/#Preconfigured-Tomcat and I get the same results.

What am I doing wrong? Please help me. I'm desperate and I don't know what else to do.

Thanks in advance,

Vicent Palasi