[java] Could not open ServletContext resource

This is quite similar question to one older but the solution did not work for me.

I have a WAR package.

In web.xml

<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>classpath:application-context.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
    <listener-class>
        org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
    </listener-class>
</listener>

In application-context.xml

<bean id="placeholderConfig" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
    <property name="location">
        <value>classpath:social.properties</value>
    </property>
</bean>

But getting this:

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializationException: Could not load properties; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open ServletContext resource [/social.properties]

I checked the WAR package - .xml and .properties files are both in /WEB-INF/classes

.properties file is in src/main/resources and .xml in src/main/java (in default package both) and maven transports them (I think) correctly in the default package of WEB-INF/classes

Does anyone know why i could get this exception? Thank you.

EDIT: I just want to add that JUnit tests goes correctly (i mean they load what they should from social.properties) but when running the app it ignores my classpath: prefix

Mark sure propertie file is in "/WEB-INF/classes" try to use

<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
    <property name="location">
        <value>/WEB-INF/classes/social.properties</value>
    </property>
</bean>

I think currently the application-context.xml file is into src/main/resources AND the social.properties file is into src/main/java... so when you package (mvn package) or when you run tomcat (mvn tomcat:run) your social.properties disappeared (I know you said when you checked into the .war the files are here... but your exception says the opposite).

The solution is simply to put all your configuration files (application-context.xml and social.properties) into src/main/resources to follow the maven standard structure.

try with this code...

 <bean id="propertyConfigurer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
         <property name="ignoreUnresolvablePlaceholders" value="true"/>
             <property name="locations">
              <list>                        
                    <value>/social.properties</value>               
              </list>
         </property>         
        </bean>

I had the same error.

My filename was jpaContext.xml and it was placed in src/main/resources. I specified param value="classpath:/jpaContext.xml".

Finally I renamed the file to applicationContext.xml and moved it to the WEB-INF directory and changed param value to /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml, then it worked!

Put the things like /src/main/resources/foo/bar.properties and then reference them as classpath:/foo/bar.properties.

Try to use classpath*: prefix instead.

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/spring-framework-reference/html/resources.html#resources-classpath-wildcards

Also please try to deploy exploded war, to ensure that all files are there.

Are you having Tomcat unpack the WAR file? It seems that the files cannot be found on the classpath when a WAR file is loaded and it is not being unpacked.