[jsp] java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.jsp.index_jsp

I have an old struts 1 app that has always been built using Ant, which I'm converting to use Maven instead. The structure of my app is modular, with dependency management in the containing module. The containing module's dep mgmt section contains:

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>3.0.1</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
            <version>1.2</version>
        </dependency>
        ...
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

When I build the war (I run the package Maven job from the containing module) and run a Tomcat configuration with that war from intelliJ, I see the following in my browser:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to load class for JSP
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.getServlet(JspServletWrapper.java:161)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:340)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:313)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:260)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)

root cause
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to load class for JSP
org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.load(JspCompilationContext.java:630)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.getServlet(JspServletWrapper.java:149)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:340)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:313)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:260)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)

root cause
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.jsp.index_jsp
java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JasperLoader.loadClass(JasperLoader.java:134)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JasperLoader.loadClass(JasperLoader.java:66)
org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.load(JspCompilationContext.java:628)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.getServlet(JspServletWrapper.java:149)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:340)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:313)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:260)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)

Everything I can find from searching on this suggests the cause is a version conflict in javax.servlet jars, but there is nothing in my WEB-INF/lib directory at all. I have tried using scope of provided, compile, and even install/pom, but those don't do anything helpful.

There is nothing additional in the tomcat logs.

I confirmed that the jsps are being compiled. I am using jspc-maven-plugin.

In my sub-module's (not the containing one's) pom.xml, I have:

<build>
    <!-- default goal to run if somebody doesn't pick one (rarely matters) -->
    <defaultGoal>install</defaultGoal>

    <!-- resources and filtering - also see configuration under maven-war-plugin below -->
    <resources>
        <resource>
            <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
            <filtering>true</filtering>
        </resource>
    </resources>
    <filters>
        <filter>src/main/resources/${env}.properties</filter>
        <filter>src/main/resources/${env}.tokens</filter>
    </filters>

    <plugins>
        <!-- begin - precompiling jsps -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>jspc-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>jspc</id>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>compile</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <warSourceDirectory>${basedir}/src/main/webroot</warSourceDirectory>
                        <inputWebXml>${basedir}/src/main/webroot/WEB-INF/web.xml</inputWebXml>
                        <!--<workingDirectory>${basedir}/src/main/webroot</workingDirectory>-->
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
        <!-- end - precompiling jsps -->

        <!-- used to build warfiles -->
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.0</version>
            <configuration>
                <webResources>
                    <resource>
                        <directory>${pom.basedir}/src/main/webroot</directory>
                        <filtering>true</filtering>
                        <!--<targetPath>WEB-INF</targetPath>-->
                    </resource>
                </webResources>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

I can see in the maven build output that the jsps are being compiled. But I still get the JasperException.

This was caused because of something like this in my case:

<jsp-config>
    <jsp-property-group>
        <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern>
        <include-prelude>/headerfooter/header.jsp</include-prelude>
        <include-coda>/headerfooter/footer.jsp</include-coda>
    </jsp-property-group>
</jsp-config>

The problem was actually I did not have header.jsp in my project. However the error message was still saying index_jsp was not found.

An addition to the other answers that didn't work for me: In my case the error occurred due to permission errors. The project got deployed while the tomcat was running as root, later when started as tomcat user I got the error from the question title.

Solution in my case was to set the right permissions, e.x. on a unix system:

cd <tomcat-dir>
chown -R <tomcat-user> *

I also lost a half of day trying to fix this.

It appeared that root was my project pom.xml file with dependency:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
        <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.1</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>

Other members of the team had no problems. At the end it appeared, that I got newer tomcat which has different version of jsp-api provided (in tomcat 7.0.60 and above it will be jsp-api 2.2).

So in this case, options would be:

a) installing different (older/newer) tomcat like (Exactly what I did, because team is on older version)
b) changing dependency scope to 'compile'
c) update whole project dependencies to the actual version of Tomcat/lib provided APIs
d) put matching version of the jsp-api.jar in {tomcat folder}/lib

In my case the problem is fixed by setting the right permissions for the tomcat home path:

cd /opt/apache-tomee-webprofile-7.1.0/
chown -R tomcat:tomcat *

I have had the same problem in my project. I used an IntelliJ Idea 14 and Maven 8. And what I've noticed is that when I added a tomcat destination to to IDE it automaticly linked two jars from tomcat lib directory, they were servlet-api and jsp-api. Also I had them in my pom.xml. I killed a whole day trying to figure out why I'm getting java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.jsp.index_jsp. And kewpiedoll99 is right. That is because there are dependency conflicts. When I added provided to those two jars in my pom.xml I found a happiness :)

I my case I'd manually moved a .war file to /var/lib/tomcat9/webapps and unzipped it, then did "chown -R tomcat:tomcat *" in that directory and it resolved it.

What version of tomcat are you using ? What appears to me is that the tomcat version is not supporting the servlet & jsp versions you're using. You can change to something like below or look into your version of tomcat on what it supports and change the versions accordingly.

 <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>3.0.1</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

I had to delete Tomcat's work directory as it had cached previously generated files. To do this:

1. Stop Tomcat
2. Delete the 'work' directory
3. Start Tomcat

This will cause the work directory to be newly generated.