Answered provided by Tom Saleeba is very helpful. Today I also struggled with the same error
Apr 28, 2015 7:53:27 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal SEVERE: Error listenerStart
I followed the suggestion and added the logging.properties file. And below was my reason of failure:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot set web app root system property when WAR file is not expanded
The root cause of the issue was a listener (Log4jConfigListener) that I added into the web.xml. And as per the link SEVERE: Exception org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListener , this listener cannot be added within a WAR that is not expanded.
It may be helpful for someone to know that this was happening on OpenShift JBoss gear.