Today I ran into this nice little exception:
It was quite puzzling, since NOTHING was changed in the site's sourcecode or the server's setup for ages...javax.servlet.ServletException
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.handlePageException(PageContextImpl.java:498)
at org.apache.jsp.ordersAdmin_jsp._jspService(ordersAdmin_jsp.java:164)
at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:92)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:809)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:162)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:240)
at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:187)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:809)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:200)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:146)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:209)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:596)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:433)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:948)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:144)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:596)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:433)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:948)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.invoke(StandardContext.java:2358)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:133)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:596)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorDispatcherValve.invoke(ErrorDispatcherValve.java:118)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:594)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:594)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:433)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:948)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:127)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:596)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:433)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:948)
at org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:152)
at org.apache.jk.server.JkCoyoteHandler.invoke(JkCoyoteHandler.java:300)
at org.apache.jk.common.HandlerRequest.invoke(HandlerRequest.java:374)
at org.apache.jk.common.ChannelSocket.invoke(ChannelSocket.java:743)
at org.apache.jk.common.ChannelSocket.processConnection(ChannelSocket.java:675)
at org.apache.jk.common.SocketConnection.runIt(ChannelSocket.java:866)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:683)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)
*root cause*
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
[SOLUTION]
The "catalina.log" file had incredible 1.4 GB size!! - because another error was repeatedly written to that log.
This other error ("file not found" - due to missing directory) prevented strings from being written to a file, so they were kept in some kind of Tomcat's internal cache.
After I made sure that the problematic file could be written, the "OutOfMemoryError" disappeared.