tomcat - Server is not connected when trying to deploy with intellij

Question

I am trying to build, deploy and debug my webapp inside intellij.

I have setup my tomcat using this answer and I was able to get the server running. The issue is that my webapp is not being deployed, though it is defined in the deployment tab.

I am getting the following error: server is not connected. Deploy is not available

If I copy the war and start the server everything works Ok. With ports 8080 and 8000.

What am I doing wrong?

Just in case it is somehow related, the project is build with Maven & Spring

I added the Run/Debug Configuration for the Server:

Server Tab

Deployment Tab

Debug Console output:

D:developmentinfraappServersapache-tomcat-7.0.47incatalina.bat run
[2014-08-05 01:23:11,413] Artifact devstage:war exploded: Server is not connected. Deploy is not available.
Using CATALINA_BASE:   "C:Userschaim.IntelliJIdea13systemomcatUnnamed_devstage_4"
Using CATALINA_HOME:   "D:developmentinfraappServersapache-tomcat-7.0.47"
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: "D:developmentinfraappServersapache-tomcat-7.0.47emp"
Using JRE_HOME:        "C:Program FilesJavajdk1.7.0_45"
Using CLASSPATH:       "D:developmentinfraappServersapache-tomcat-7.0.47inootstrap.jar;D:developmentinfraappServersapache-tomcat-7.0.47inomcat-juli.jar"
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init
INFO: Loaded APR based Apache Tomcat Native library 1.1.29 using APR version 1.4.8.
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init
INFO: APR capabilities: IPv6 [true], sendfile [true], accept filters [false], random [true].
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener initializeSSL
INFO: OpenSSL successfully initialized (OpenSSL 1.0.1e 11 Feb 2013)
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["http-apr-8080"]
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol init
INFO: Initializing ProtocolHandler ["ajp-apr-8009"]
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 902 ms
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService startInternal
INFO: Starting service Catalina
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine startInternal
INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.47
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start
INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-apr-8080"]
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start
INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["ajp-apr-8009"]
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:12 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 35 ms
[2014-08-05 01:23:21,363] Artifact devstage:war exploded: Server is not connected. Deploy is not available.
Aug 05, 2014 1:23:22 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDirectory
INFO: Deploying web application directory D:developmentinfraappServersapache-tomcat-7.0.47webappsmanager
[2014-08-05 01:23:38,311] Artifact devstage:war exploded: Server is not connected. Deploy is not available.

Answer 1

In short:

After setting my IntelliJ configuration to run the latest version of Tomcat that I was running in the background my problem was resolved.

A brief description:

I had the exact same error in my IntelliJ 14 while I had a setup and was working on another machine. While the source of the issue can differ, in my case here was the root cause:

I basically had two different versions of Tomcat Installed on my machine. Tomcat 8 was running in the background on port 8090 and despite of setting my debugger instance port to be 8091 it was giving me the following error:

Server is not connected. Deploy is not available.

and The following warnings:

1:21:18 PM It is possible to bind and connect to localhost:8091 at the same time - application server will probably compete with some other software on the port

1:32:39 PM Application Server was not connected before run configuration stop, reason: Unable to ping server at localhost:1099

After setting my IntelliJ configuration to run the latest version of Tomcat that I was running in the background my problem was resolved.

Hint: Running applications in debug mode can slow them down a fair bit. I usually have two instances running. One in debug mode and one in normal mode in two different ports. This way I can have a normal instance of my web application as well as a debugger instance for more in depth investigations.

Hope this helps.